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Nat King Cole
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Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles on Montgomery, AL, on March 17, 1919. (In his early years of music-making, he dispensed with the "s" at the end of his name.) As a black child born to a poor family in the American South at that time, he did not have a birth certificate. His March 17 birthday was recalled because it was ... St. Patrick's Day. He listed conflicting years of birth on legal documents during his life; most sources give the year as 1917. But biographer Daniel Mark Epstein for his 1999 book Nat King Cole consulted the 1920 census to determine that the Coles household had a male infant at that time and confirm the birth year as 1919. Cole s father was a butcher who aspired to the Baptist ministry, and when Cole was four the family moved to Chicago, where his father eventually succeeded in becoming a preacher.
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For a mild-mannered man whose music was always easy on the ear, Nat King Cole managed to be a figure of considerable controversy during his 30 years as a professional musician. From the late '40s to the mid-'60s, he was a massively successful pop singer who ranked with such contemporaries as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dean Martin. He shared with those peers a career that encompassed hit records, international touring, radio and television shows, and appearances in films. But unlike them, he had not emerged from a background as a band singer in the swing era. Instead, he had spent a decade as a celebrated jazz pianist, leading his own small group. Oddly, that was one source of controversy.
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Nat King Cole had two overlapping careers. He was one of the truly great swing pianists, inspired by Earl Hines and a big influence on Oscar Peterson. And he was a superb pop ballad dsinger whose great commercial success in that field unfortunately resulted in him greatly de-emphasizing his piano after 1949. Perhaps if his talents had been divided between two different people! Nat Cole grew up in Chicago and by the time he was 12 he was playing organ and singing in church; his three brothers (Eddie, Fred and Isaac) would become jazz musicians. After making his recording debut with Eddie Cole's Solid Swingers in 1936, he left Chicago to lead the band for the revival of the revue Shuffle Along, and settled in Los Angeles when the show ended.
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Jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole dies of lung cancer at age 46. In 1991, his daughter, singer Natalie Cole, released a new album, Unforgettable With Love. Electronic recording and mixing technology allowed her to record duets with her father, using his old tracks. The album was No. 1 in the United States for five weeks and won the Grammy for Best Album of the Year.
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Interest in Nat King Cole's story only grows as new generations discover his role as an unlikely catalyst in a host of musical and social movements. The arc of Cole's life is a study in success despite adversity, and the triumph of civility, respect and raw talent in equal measure with political, cultural and business savvy.
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In 1943 Nat King Cole was signed to Capitol Records, situated in the heart of Hollywood. Nat's big break came whilst he was playing at the Radio Room in Los Angeles, he was heard by Johnny Mercer one of the executive producers at Capitol who quickly signed him to their label. Nat soon became their most successful recording artiste and eventually their new premises - the Capitol Records Tower on Hollywood and Vine, would become known as `The House That Nat Built’.
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Nat King Cole