Nat King Cole

Despite his gentle personality and mellow sound, Nat King Cole sparked intense debate across three decades in the music business. Between the late 1940s and the middle 1960s he ranked among the era’s leading pop vocalists, standing alongside Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dean Martin through hit singles, worldwide tours, radio and television programs, and motion-picture appearances. Unlike those peers, however, he arrived from a jazz background rather than the swing-era big-band circuit; for roughly ten years he had led a respected small-group piano trio. That shift itself drew criticism from jazz writers, who viewed his move into mainstream pop—precisely when jazz was losing broad popularity—as disloyalty. Simultaneously, his prominence as a Black performer placed him amid the era’s racial tensions. Efforts to integrate hotels and to purchase a home in an all-white Los Angeles neighborhood provoked hostility from segregationists, culminating in a physical assault on stage in Alabama, while some civil-rights leaders faulted him for insufficient activism.

These disputes never diminished his achievements as an artist. Jazz devotees’ disappointment must be weighed against his documented contributions to the music: an heir to Earl Hines, whom he had studied in Chicago, Cole influenced pianists such as Oscar Peterson, and his trio helped steer small-ensemble jazz forward at the close of the swing period. The sense of abandonment felt by jazz listeners paralleled the reaction Bob Dylan later received from folk audiences; the sting was sharper because Cole had been regarded as a central figure rather than an ordinary participant. Less frequently recalled are the successes that followed his emphasis on singing. His warm, slightly husky timbre and clear diction suited both ballads and light novelties, yielding more than one hundred pop-chart singles and over two dozen charting albums across twenty years—placing him second only to Sinatra among the most commercially successful vocalists of his generation.

Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919. Early in his career he dropped the final “s” from his surname. Because no birth certificate existed for the poor Black family, his March 17 birthday was remembered only as St. Patrick’s Day. He listed varying birth years on official papers; most references cite 1917, yet biographer Daniel Mark Epstein’s review of the 1920 census confirmed the presence of a male infant and established 1919 as correct. His father, a butcher who wished to enter the Baptist ministry, relocated the household to Chicago when Cole was four; there the elder Coles eventually became a preacher.

Cole’s older brother Eddie, who later played bass, shared his early musical interests. Their mother provided initial piano instruction, supplemented by later lessons. By his mid-teens Cole was leading a local band, either the Royal Dukes or the Rogues of Rhythm, and he left high school at fifteen to pursue music professionally. In 1936 Eddie returned from a tour with Noble Sissle’s orchestra; the brothers formed a sextet that recorded two sides for Decca on July 28 as Eddie Cole’s Swingsters—Cole’s first session. That autumn the group joined a touring revival of the all-Black revue Shuffle Along. Cole stayed with the production when it left Broadway, partly because his girlfriend, dancer Nadine Robinson, remained with it; the couple married in Michigan on January 27, 1937, although he was only seventeen. The tour ended in Los Angeles in May 1937, and the newlyweds settled there.

While playing at the Café Century that summer, Cole accepted an offer to assemble a small group for the Swanee Inn. Guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince joined him; the trio adopted the name King Cole Swingsters—soon shortened to King Cole Trio—from the nursery rhyme. Cole began to sing as well as play piano, and the unit gradually attracted attention. In September 1938 they cut radio transcriptions that were later released commercially. Occasional recordings for small labels followed in 1939 and 1940, along with expanded touring. Late in 1940 they signed with Decca again; their 1941 track “That Ain’t Right” reached number one on Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade on January 30, 1943, Cole’s first hit. By then Wesley Prince had departed for wartime work and Johnny Miller had taken his place.

The Decca contract lapsed before the hit materialized. The trio recorded “All for You” for Excelsior in October 1942; Capitol acquired and reissued it, and on November 20, 1943, the single became their second Harlem Hit Parade chart-topper while also entering the pop list. Capitol then signed Cole directly. The initial Capitol session yielded “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” which led the Black chart for ten weeks beginning April 29, 1944, topped the folk (country) chart for six weeks, and reached the pop Top Ten; “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” followed the same pattern that October. Four additional Black-chart entries appeared in 1944, and Capitol issued the eight-track album The King Cole Trio that autumn. When Billboard’s album chart began on March 24, 1945, the set occupied the top position for twelve weeks.

As big-band swing waned and bebop emerged, the King Cole Trio moved in the opposite direction. Club, theater, film, and radio opportunities multiplied. After guest appearances on Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall, the trio and pianist Eddy Duchin hosted the program’s thirteen-week summer replacement in 1946. During that run The King Cole Trio, Vol. 2 reached number one on August 17. Within five days the group recorded two key sides: Mel Tormé and Robert Wells’ “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You),” Cole’s first with strings, and the ballad “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.” The latter became his first number-one pop single on December 28, 1946; the Christmas record peaked at number three and eventually sold a million copies. The trio also launched its own fifteen-minute network series, King Cole Trio Time, which ran from October 19, 1946, to April 1948.

Recording activity increased in late 1947 ahead of the musicians’ strike. On August 22 Cole cut “Nature Boy” with orchestral accompaniment; released March 29, 1948, under the name “King Cole,” it held the pop summit for eight weeks and earned gold status. Oscar Moore left that October after a decade and was succeeded by Irving Ashby. In March 1948 Cole divorced Nadine Robinson and married singer Marie Ellington; their children included Natalie Cole. Johnny Miller departed in August 1948, replaced by Joe Comfort. Jack Costanzo joined on percussion in February 1949, after which the billing became “Nat King Cole & the Trio.” By spring 1950 recordings simply credited “Nat King Cole.” On July 8 his string-laden “Mona Lisa,” arranged by Nelson Riddle, became his third number-one pop hit and another gold record.

That September Cole embarked on his first European tour, initiating a schedule of near-constant appearances in major nightclubs, concert halls, and Las Vegas casinos, interspersed with visits to Europe, the Far East, and Latin America. He stood for most performances, sitting only occasionally at the piano. Ashby and Comfort exited in 1951; although an announcement declared the trio dissolved, Cole continued with guitarist John Collins, bassist Charles Harris, and Costanzo (later replaced by drummer Lee Young), frequently expanding the unit with orchestra. “Too Young” gave him a fourth number-one pop single and gold record on June 23, 1951. “Unforgettable” reached number twelve in February 1952 yet endured; Natalie Cole’s 1991 duet version with her father’s original track earned gold and the Grammy for Record of the Year. The 1952 instrumental album Penthouse Serenade briefly reached number ten, while Cole took small acting parts in The Blue Gardenia, Small Town Girl, and the television drama Song for a Banjo in 1953. Nat King Cole Sings for Two in Love, again arranged by Riddle, entered the Top Ten in early 1954.

Although no number-one single appeared in 1953, seven chart entries placed him among the year’s ten most successful singles artists. Five 1954 entries, including the gold-selling Top Ten hit “Answer Me, My Love,” repeated the ranking. Eight further entries in 1955, among them the Top Ten hits “Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup,” “A Blossom Fell,” and “If I May,” sustained his position. Nine more placements kept him in the upper tier in 1956, and he maintained the standing in 1957 with the Top Ten and R&B chart-topping “Send for Me.” One additional Top Ten single, “Looking Back,” arrived in 1958 before rock & roll curtailed his singles-chart dominance. He revisited jazz on the 1957 album After Midnight, joined by Harry “Sweets” Edison, Stuff Smith, Willie Smith, and Juan Tizol. The ballad collection Love Is the Thing, arranged by Gordon Jenkins, topped the album chart for eight weeks beginning May 27, 1957, and later received platinum certification.

In autumn 1956 Cole became the first Black host of a network television series when The Nat King Cole Show debuted as a fifteen-minute weekly program on November 5; it expanded to a half-hour the following July and concluded in December, lacking a national sponsor. Cole attributed the absence of sponsorship to racial prejudice. He resumed acting in Istanbul and China Gate in 1957 and portrayed W.C. Handy in the 1958 film St. Louis Blues; his final screen role came in Night of the Quarter Moon in 1959. Turning to theater in 1960, he assembled a revue with songs by Dotty Wayne and Ray Rasch. The album Wild Is Love reached the Top Ten for the first time in three years, yet the stage version, I’m with You, closed during its pre-Broadway tour. Cole adapted the material into the touring revue Sights and Sounds: The Merry World of Nat King Cole, which he presented regularly from 1961 to 1964.

“Ramblin’ Rose” returned him to the pop singles Top Ten in 1962; the accompanying album also reached the Top Ten and later earned platinum status. “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” became his final Top Ten hit in summer 1963. Diagnosed with lung cancer in December 1964, he died two months later at age forty-five.

After his death Cole retained appeal for both audiences that had followed him. Jazz enthusiasts continued to value his 1930s and 1940s trio recordings while overlooking later pop work; German discographer Klaus Teubig’s 1994 chronology and discography Straighten Up and Fly Right ended coverage in the early 1950s. Pop listeners sought reissues of his 1950s and 1960s material, granting gold status to Capitol compilations irrespective of his pianistic skill. As his recordings entered the public domain in Europe after fifty years, numerous low-quality editions appeared. The persistent division itself attested to Cole’s enduring hold on listeners in the decades after his early passing.