Cole, Natalie

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NATALIE COLE

Born: Los Angeles, California, 6 February 1950

Genre: R&B

Best-selling album since 1990: Unforgettable: With Love (1991)

Hit songs since 1990: "Unforgettable," "Take a Look"

The daughter of legendary pop crooner Nat "King" Cole, Natalie Cole has enjoyed a distinguished, if erratic, recording career. Issuing her first recordings in the mid-1970s, Cole initially pursued a spirited, gospel-infused sound heavily influenced by R&B legend Aretha Franklin. Overcoming a host of personal problems during the early 1980s, Cole continued performing in a pop and R&B vein before switching in the early 1990s to orchestrated pop tinged with jazz—the type of sophisticated music associated with her late father. In spite of this new focus on pop styles of the past, Cole maintained her commercial success, earning multiple Grammy Awards for an album dedicated to her father's memory, Unforgettable: With Love (1991). Although writers have sometimes criticized her latter-day style as too sedate, Cole has preserved her warm, expressive voice and phrasing. In 2002 she broadened her artistic horizons further, recording an album for the jazz-oriented Verve label that some critics regard as her finest.

R&B Beginnings

Raised in a luxurious neighborhood in Los Angeles, Cole made her stage debut performing with her father as a child in 1962. In her teens she longed to embark upon an artistic career but was deterred by her mother, singer Maria Cole, who insisted that she attend college. After graduating with a degree in child psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1972, Cole worked as a waitress and performed in nightclubs. During a 1974 engagement at the Chicago club Mr. Kelley's, Cole met producers Marvin Yancey and Chuck Jackson, who over-saw writing and production work on her debut album, Inseparable (1975). Featuring the joyous, piano-driven hit, "This Will Be," as well as the creamy title ballad, the album staked Cole's claim as an impassioned soul singer rooted in Franklin's flamboyant gospel tradition. Marrying Yancey, Cole continued having hits into the 1980s, although her career was curtailed during this period by a severe drug dependency—described in honest, unsettling detail in her 2000 autobiography, Angel on My Shoulder. By 1984 Cole had conquered drugs and resumed her recording career, entering her second marriage with musician Andre Fischer. Fischer spearheaded Cole's musical shift toward jazz and pop, producing her breakthrough album, Unforgettable: With Love (1991).

Gaining Stardom through Pop and Jazz

Having found a distinct musical voice through the success of Unforgettable: With Love, Cole continued on the same path, recording another set of pop and jazz standards with Take a Look (1993). In many respects Take a Look qualifies as the equal of its predecessor, with Cole displaying intelligence in song selection and ease in navigating a range of pop styles. One of the album's most impressive moments is Cole's treatment of the title song, first recorded by her one-time musical idol, Aretha Franklin, in 1964. A biting critique of the human capacity for cruelty, "Take a Look" builds slowly through Cole's interpretation, reaching a powerful climax in which her emotiveness draws out the song's outrage and sadness. Although Cole spent the majority of the 1990s recording in the same pop-jazz style, Snowfall on the Sahara (1999) is a notable exception, a collection of blues and soul-based material. Tackling classics such as rock pioneer Bob Dylan's frequently recorded "Gotta Serve Somebody" and soul singer Lorraine Ellison's dramatic 1966 classic "Stay with Me," Cole again demonstrates her range and versatility.

Cole's signing with the reputed jazz label, Verve, in 2002 suggests a desire to delve deeper into jazz territory, to stake her claim as a stylist on a par with famed singers of the past such as Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. While Ask a Woman Who Knows (2002) does not approach the finest work of those performers, it ranks as one of Cole's richest and most rewarding efforts, a collection that finds the singer in total command of her voice and craft. Featuring a billowing horn arrangement, the title track—a song often associated with Washington—is one of the album's strongest. Cole's thoughtful, incisive interpretation is balanced by the precision of an all-star quintet that includes pianist Joe Sample and bassist Christian McBride. While some critics observed that the album's string arrangements often veer toward bland "cocktail jazz," Ask a Woman Who Knows emerges as an admirable, impressive new artistic direction for Cole, proving that, at age fifty-two, the singer remains in her vocal prime.

Over the course of a long career, Cole has witnessed her share of triumph and loss—both professional and personal. Beginning as an R&B vocalist molded in the manner of Aretha Franklin, Cole evolved by the early 1990s into a jazz and pop singer of the highest order, honoring her father's memory with her successful album Unforget-table: With Love. In the early 2000s Cole embarked upon a deeper exploration of jazz terrain with satisfying results.

Spot Light: Unforgettable: With Love

By the early 1990s, after nearly two decades of hit recordings, Natalie Cole had established a reputation as a respected, successful R&B singer. Still, her career had long been hampered by critical comparisons to other R&B vocalists—notably Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan—as well as the shadow of her famous father, pop legend Nat "King" Cole. Ironically, it was through delving into her father's work that Cole was finally able to forge her own identity as a vocalist. Unforgettable: With Love (1991), a collection of songs made famous by her father, became the most successful album of Cole's career, climbing to the top of the Pop Albums chart. On lushly arranged songs such as "The Very Thought of You" and "Mona Lisa," Cole reveals herself as a first-rate stylist, her diction, pitch, and lyrical interpretation confident and mature. On rhythmic songs such as "Route 66" she displays a finely honed sense of swing and timing. The album is especially notable, however, for the title track, on which Cole "duets" with her father, electronically layering her vocal over his original performance. A measure of how far recording technology has advanced since the elder Cole originally hit with "Unforgettable" in 1952, the performance garnered much publicity and spurred sales of the album past the 5 million mark. Although some critics complained that the album's string arrangements were watery and without distinction, Unforgettable: With Love revived Cole's career, earning Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Traditional Pop Recording.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Inseparable (Capitol, 1975); Thankful (Capitol, 1977); Everlasting (Elektra, 1987); Unforgettable: With Love (Elektra, 1991); Take a Look (Elektra, 1993); Stardust (Elektra, 1996); Snowfall on the Sahara (Elektra, 1999); Ask a Woman Who Knows (Verve, 2002).