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in '' The Blue Gardenia '' (1953)]] Nat King Cole ( March 17 , 1919 – February 15 , 1965 ) was a popular American Singer and Jazz musician. CHILDHOOD AND CHICAGO Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama . Nat's father was a butcher in Montgomery and a deacon in the Baptist church. His family moved to Chicago, Illinois while he was still a child. There, his father became a minister; Nat's mother Perlina was the church organist. She was the only piano teacher he ever had. His first performance, at age four, was of "Yes, We Have No Bananas." He learned not only jazz and gospel music, but European classical music as well, performing, as he said, "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Rachmaninoff." The family lived in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, which was famous in the 1920s for its nightlife and jazz clubs. Nat would sneak out of the house and hang outside the clubs, listening to artists such as Louis Armstrong , Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Jimmie Noone. He participated in Walter Dyett's renowned music program at DuSable High School . Inspired by the playing of Fatha Hines, Cole began his performing career in the mid 1930s while he was still a teenager, and adopted the name Nat Cole (losing the "s" from his last name). His older brother, Eddie Coles, a bassist, soon joined Nat's band and they first recorded in 1936 under Eddie's name. They were also regular performers at clubs. In fact, Nat got his nickname "King" performing at one jazz club, a nickname presumably reinforced by the otherwise-unrelated nursery rhyme about "Old King Cole". Cole also was pianist in a national touring revival of ragtime and Broadway legend Eubie Blake's review, ''Shuffle Along''. When it suddenly failed in Long Beach, California, Cole decided to remain there. LOS ANGELES AND THE KING COLE TRIO Nat Cole and three other musicians formed the "King Cole Swingers" in Long Beach and played in a number of local bars before getting a gig on the Long Beach Pike for $90 per week. Nat married dancer Nadine Robinson, who was also with ''Shuffle Along'', and moved to Los Angeles where he formed the Nat King Cole Trio. The trio consisted of Nat on piano, Oscar Moore on guitar, and Wesley Prince on double bass. The trio played in Los Angeles throughout the late 1930s and recorded many radio transcriptions. Cole did not achieve widespread popularity until "Sweet Lorraine" in 1940. Although he sang ballads with the trio, he was shy about his voice. While Cole prided himself on his diction, he never considered himself a strong singer. His subdued style, however, contrasted well with the belting approach of most jazz singers. During World War II, Wesley Prince left the group and Cole replaced him with Johnny Miller. The King Cole Trio signed with the fledgling Capitol Records in 1943 and stayed with the recording company for the rest of Cole's career. By the 1950s, Cole's popularity was so great that the Capitol Records building, on Hollywood and Vine, was sometimes referred to as "The House that Nat Built". Cole was considered a leading jazz pianist, appearing, for example, in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. His revolutionary lineup of piano, guitar and bass in the time of the big bands became a popular set up for a jazz trio. It was emulated by many musicians, among them Art Tatum, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan , and blues pianists Charles Brown and Ray Charles. He also performed as a pianist on sessions with Lester Young, Red Garland, and Lionel Hampton. POLITICS Throughout his career Cole did what few of his contemporaries did, he kept his political beliefs to himself, at least in public. On August 23, 1956 Cole spoke at the Republican National Convention in the Cow Palace , San Francisco , California . He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960, to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy . Cole was also among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Nat King Cole frequently consulted with President Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on the issue of civil rights. Yet he was dogged by critics, who felt he shied away from controversy when it came to the civil rights issue. Among the most notable was Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall , who was upset that Cole didn't take stronger action after being attacked on stage by white supremecists in 1956 (see below). SINGING CAREER His first mainstream vocal hit was with "Straighten Up and Fly Right", based on a black Folk Tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Although hardly a rocker, the song's success proved that an audience for folk-based material existed. It is considered a predecessor to the First Rock And Roll Record s. Indeed, Bo Diddley , who performed similar transformations of folk material, counted Cole as an influence. Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more pop-oriented material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a string orchestra. His stature as a popular icon was cemented during this period with such hits as " The Christmas Song " ( 1946 ), " Nature Boy " ( 1948 ), " Mona Lisa " ( 1950 ), and his signature tune "Unforgettable" ( 1951 ). While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of Selling Out , he never totally abandoned his musical roots; as late as 1956 , for instance, he recorded an all-jazz album, ''After Midnight''. In 1991 , Mosaic Records released the Complete Nat King Cole Trio Recordings on Capitol , which contained 349 songs on 27 LPs or 18 CDs. Throughout the 1950's Cole continued to rack up hit after hit, including " Smile ", " Pretend ", " A Blossom Fell ", " If I May " and many others. Most of his pop hits were collaborations with famed arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle . It was with Riddle that Cole released his first 10-inch Long Play Album in 1953 entitled "Nat King Cole Sings For Two In Love". Several more albums followed, including the Gordon Jenkins arranged "Love Is the Thing", which peaked at #1 on the album charts in April, 1957. Inspired by a trip to Havana, Cuba in 1958, Nat went back there that same year and recorded "Cole Espanol", an album sung entirely in Spanish and Portuguese. The album was a hit not only in the U.S., but in Latin America as well. The album was so popular, that two others followed: "A Mis Amigos" in 1959, and "More Cole Espanol" in 1962. Musical tastes were changing in the late 1950's, and despite a successful stab at rock n' roll with " Send For Me " (peaked at #6 pop), Cole's ballad singing had grown old to younger listeners. Like contemporaries Dean Martin , Frank Sinatra & Tony Bennett , Nat found that the pop singles chart had be almost entirely taken over by youth oriented acts. In 1960 , Nat's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle, left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's newly formed Reprise Records label. The two parted ways with one final hit album "Wild Is Love", based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne . Nat would later re-tool the concept album into an off broadway production called "I'm With You". As the ", " Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer ", and " That Sunday, That Summer ". Nat's final album was entitled " L.O.V.E ", and was recorded in late 1964 . It was released just prior to his death and peaked at #4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965 . A "Best Of" album went gold in 1968 . His 1957 song "When I Fall In Love" was a chart topping hit for Great Britain in 1987. Cole was the first African American to have his own Radio Program . He repeated that success in the late-1950s with the first truly national television show starring an African-American. In both cases, the programs were ultimately cancelled because sponsors shied away from a black artist. Cole fought Racism all his life, refusing to perform in Segregated venues. In 1956, he was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by members of the White Citizens' Council who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. Despite injuries, Cole completed the show but vowed never to perform in the South again. In 1948 , Cole purchased a house in the all- White Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The property owners association told Cole they didn't want any undesirables moving in. Cole retorted "Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain." He and his second wife, Maria Ellington,(no relation to Duke) were married in Harlem 's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. They had five children, including twin girls. Daughter Carol Cole , and son Kelly Cole were adopted. Kelly Cole died in 1995. Nat's daughter, Natalie Cole , and his younger brother, Freddie Cole are also singers. Natalie and her father had an unexpected hit in the Summer of 1991 . The younger Cole mixed a 1961 recording of her father's rendition of "Unforgettable" with her own voice, creating an electronic duet. Both the song and the album of the same name won several grammys the following year. Cole performed in many Short Film s, and played W. C. Handy in the film '' Saint Louis Blues ''. He also appeared in ''The Nat King Cole Story'', "China Gate" and "The Blue Gardena" (see photo above). Nat King Cole, a heavy Smoker , died of Lung Cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California , on February 15th, 1965 . He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale , California . '' Cat Ballou '', his final film, was released several months later. His funeral was held at St. Victor's Catholic Church in West Hollywood. MAKING TELEVISION HISTORY On November 5, 1956, The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV. While commentators have often hailed Cole as the first African-American to host a network television show (an honor belonging to Hazel Scott in 1950), the Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by a star of Nat Cole's magnitude. Initially begun as a 15 minute show on Monday night, the show was expanded to a half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC as well as many of Cole's industry colleagues (most of whom, such as Ella Fitzgerald and Harry Belafonte , worked for industry scale in order to help the show save money), the Nat King Cole Show was ultimately done in by a lack of national sponsorship (It should be noted that such companies as Rheingold Beer assumed regional sponsorship of the show, but the elusive national sponsor never materialized). The last episode of The Nat King Cole Show aired December 17, 1957. Cole had survived for over a year, and it was he, not NBC, who ultimately decided to pull the plug on the show (NBC as well as Cole himself had been operating at an extreme financial loss). Commenting on the lack of sponsorship his show received, Cole quipped shortly after its demise, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark." NOTABLE SONGS
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