Nat "King" Cole Biography
Nathaniel Adams Coles, 17 March 1919 (although 1916 and 1917 have also been cited), Montgomery, Alabama, USA, d. 15 February 1965, Santa Monica, California, USA. Cole was born into a family that held a key position in the black community; his father was pastor of the First Baptist Church. In 1921 the family migrated to Chicago, part of the mass exodus of blacks seeking a better life in the booming industrial towns of the north. He learned piano by ear from his mother, who was choir director in the church, from the age of four. When he was 12 years old he took lessons in classical piano, "everything from Bach to Rachmaninoff". Jazz was all-pervasive in Chicago, and Cole's school was a musical hotbed, producing musicians of the stature of Ray Nance, Eddie South and Milt Hinton. Cole's first professional break came touring with the show Shuffle Along, a revival of the first all-black show to make it to Broadway, which he joined with his bass-playing brother, Eddie. Stranded in Los Angeles when the show folded, Cole looked for club work and found it at the Century Club on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was a hangout for musicians and the young pianist made a splash: "All the musicians dug him," said Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, "that cat could play! He was unique."
In 1939 Cole formed an innovative trio with Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass, eschewing the noise of drums. Like Fats Waller in the previous generation, Cole managed to combine pleasing and humorous ditties with piano stylings that were state-of-the-art. Times had moved on, and Cole had a suave sophistication that expressed the new aspirations of the black community. In 1943 he recorded his "Straighten Up And Fly Right" for Capitol Records - it was an instant hit and Cole's future as a pop success was assured. In 1946 "The Christmas Song" added strings, starting a process that would lead to Cole emerging as a middle-of-the-road singer, accompanied by leading arrangers and conductors including Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, Ralph Carmichael, Pete Rugolo and Billy May. In the 40s Cole made several memorable sides with the Trio, including "Sweet Lorraine", "It's Only A Paper Moon", "(Get Your Kicks) On Route 66" and "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons". By 1948, and "Nature Boy" (a US number 1), on which Cole was accompanied by Frank De Vol's Orchestra, the move away from small-group jazz, towards his eventual position as one of the most popular vocalists of the day, was well underway. Absolute confirmation came in 1950, when Cole, with Les Baxter conducting Nelson Riddle's lush arrangement of "Mona Lisa", spent eight weeks at the top of the US chart with what was to become one of his most celebrated recordings. Throughout the 50s the singles hits continued to flow, mostly with ballads such as "Too Young", "Faith Can Move Mountains", "Because You're Mine", "Unforgettable", "Somewhere Along The Way", "Funny (Not Much)", "Pretend", "Can't I?", "Answer Me, My Love", "Smile", "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup", "The Sand And The Sea", "A Blossom Fell", "When I Fall In Love" and "Star Dust" (said to be composer Hoagy Carmichael's favourite version of his song). No doubt because of his jazz grounding, Cole was equally at home with the more up-tempo "Orange Coloured Sky", backed by Stan Kenton And His Orchestra, "Walkin' My Baby Back Home", "Night Lights" and "Ballerina". In the same period, his bestselling albums included After Midnight (with the Trio), Love Is The Thing, which was at the top of the US chart for eight weeks, Just One Of Those Things, Cole Espanol and The Very Thought Of You. During the 50s he was urged to make films, but his appearances were few and far between, including character parts in Blue Gardenia, China Gate and Night Of The Quarter Moon. Cole's most effective film role came in 1958 when he played W.C. Handy in St. Louis Blues. He also appeared on screen with Stubby Kaye, singing the linking ballads in the spoof western Cat Ballou (1965), but it was clear that his enormous appeal lay in concerts and records. One of his lesser-known albums, Welcome To The Club, featured the [Count] Basie Orchestra, without the Count himself (for contractual reasons), and included Cole's superior readings of "She's Funny That Way", "Avalon" and "Look Out For Love". The title track was composed by Noel Sherman, who, with his brother Joe, wrote "Mr Cole Won't Rock And Roll", an amusing piece performed by the singer in his concert show, "Sights And Sounds', which played over 100 cities in the early 60s. It was not so much rock 'n' roll that concerned Cole's purist fans around that time: they had acute reservations about another of the Sherman Brothers" numbers, "Ramblin' Rose" (1962), the singer's first big hit in four years, which came complete with a "twangy C&W feeling". They also objected to "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days Of Summer" ("unabashed corn"), which also made the Top 10 in the following year. Cole himself felt that he was "just adjusting to the market: as soon as you start to make money in the popular field, they scream about how good you were in the old days, and what a bum you are now". Performing as part of his most agreeable musical association during the early 60s, Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays, Cole went back to 1940 for Ian Grant and Lionel Rand's "Let There Be Love". His version became a hit single in many parts of the world, and remains a particularly fondly remembered "classic" performance. In a way, he was back to where he had started at the time the song was written: singing with a small jazz group - albeit this time with George Shearing's polite piano and the inevitable "String Choir". During the years of Cole's enormous popularity in the "easy listening" field, jazz fans had to turn out to see him in the clubs to hear his glorious piano - an extension of the Earl "Fatha" Hines style that had many features of the new, hip sounds of bebop. If Cole had not had such an effective singing voice he might well have been one of bebop's leaders. Bebop was an expression of black pride, but so was Cole's career, creating opportunities for all kinds of "sepia Sinatras" (Charles Brown, Sammy Davis Jnr., etc.) who proved that whites had no monopoly on sophistication. Cole bore the brunt of racism, meeting objections when he bought a house in fashionable Beverly Hills, and becoming the first black television presenter (he abandoned the role in 1957, protesting that the agencies would not find him a national sponsor). Though his position entailed compromises that gained him the hostility of civil rights activists in the early 60s, he was a brave and decent figure in a period when racial prejudice was at its most demeaning. Before his death from lung cancer in 1965, Cole was planning a production of James Baldwin's play Amen Corner, showing an interest in radical black literature at odds with his image as a sentimental crooner. Cole's voice, which floats butter-won't-melt vowel sounds in an easy, dark drawl, is one of the great moments of black music, and no matter how sugary the arrangements he always managed to sing as if it mattered. In 1991 his daughter Natalie Cole revived his "Unforgettable", singing a duet with his recorded vocal. Despite the questionable taste of beyond-the-grave duets, Cole's piano intro was a startling reminder of the extraordinary harmonic creativity he brought to the pop music of his time. Perhaps, like Louis Armstrong, the most moving aspect of his legacy is the way his music cuts across the usual boundaries - chart-watchers and jazzheads, rock 'n' rollers and MOR fans can all have a good time with his music.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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