One hundred years ago, a man with one of the most beautiful, instantly-recognisable voices in history was born.
Nathaniel Adams Coles was a bit of a child prodigy - he learned how to play the church organ at 4 years old, and was taking piano lessons at twelve. When he was fifteen, Cole dropped out of high school to pursue a music career, eventually achieving a modicum of success with the King Cole Trio. However, it was this song that first made his name, becoming a huge radio hit for him way back in 1940:
The hits just kept coming from then on, including these:
He broke new ground by being not only the first black person to have his own radio show in the 1940s, but also (ten years later) the first African-American-hosted television show. However, the deeply-embedded racism of American society was never far away. His TV show was eventually cancelled due to the reluctance of companies to sponsor it [to which Nat responded: "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."]; this was on top of the experience he had when he moved to the the exclusive Los Angeles neighbourhood of Hancock Park in 1948 - he and his wife Maria faced daily harassment, which culminated in someone burning the word "Nigger" into their lawn and poisoning the family dog. Eventually (after criticism from the NAACP for playing to segregated audiences, and after he himself had been subject to an assault on stage), Nat became a prominent spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement.
His musical legacy is huge - he sold 50 million records in a career that spanned from 1940 to his death in 1965, and beyond (his daughter Natalie's posthumous duets with her dad being most lauded) - but this is probably my favourite...
Perfect "Sunday Music"...
Nat King Cole (born Nathaniel Adams Coles, 17th March 1919 – 15th February 1965)
