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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Natalie Cole, The #39 Female Artist of the Rock Era

Natalie Cole was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of legendary Nat King Cole.  At the age of six, Natalie sang on her father's Christmas album and began performing at age 11.  Natalie went to Northfield Mount Hermon School in New England and enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  She transferred briefly to USC before going back to UMass, where she majored in Child Psychology and minored in German.  Cole graduated from college in 1972.

Cole began singing at small clubs with her band, Black Magic.  Two Chicago area producers, Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy, heard Natalie and asked her to record some music.  The two passed the demos to several labels, most of which turned her down.  Capitol Records, her father's label, heard the music and had the wisdom and the foresight to sign her to a recording contract.

Cole, Yancy and Jackson went to Los Angeles to polish the recordings, and the result was Natalie's debut album Inseparable.  Cole released "This Will Be" as her first single in 1975, and it became a big hit, reaching #1 on the R&B chart and #6 overall in the United States and #12 in Canada.  Natalie won the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.




Cole captured Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards, and Inseparable went Gold.  The title track also was a #1 R&B smash and reached #20 on the Easy Listening chart.


Natalie strived to continue the momentum with the album Natalie in 1976.  It too went Gold despite not having any Top 20 hits on it, and earned Cole a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, for the album and an award for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, for the song "Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady)".  

Cole won the American Music Award for Favorite Female Artist-Soul/Rhythm & Blues.  The following year, Natalie struck paydirt with her third album,
Unpredictable.  The great lead single, "I've Got Love On My Mind", was another #1 smash on the R&B chart and hit #5 overall in both the U.S. and Canada and earned Natalie her fifth Grammy nomination (Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female).



Later in the year, Cole released the album Thankful, which gave Natalie her third big hit, "Our Love".  The single went to #1 on the R&B chart and #10 overall in the United States, and #11 in Canada and earned Cole a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female.


Natalie won the American Music Award for Favorite Female Artist-Soul/Rhythm & Blues for the second straight year.  She starred in her own television special, and appeared on the TV special, Sinatra and Friends.  In 1978, Cole released the album Natalie Live!

In 1979, Cole received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  She released a solo album, I Love You So, and an album of duets with Peabo Bryson, We're the Best of Friends.  Both sold over 500,000 copies, but did not contain any mainstream hits.  However, the former was cited by the Grammys in a nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, Natalie's seventh career nomination.

Cole's 1980 album Don't Look Back was her first not to go Gold, but it did contain the #3 Adult Contemporary smash "Someone That I Used To Love".


But Cole's personal problems with drug addiction became known to the public, and her career suffered.  In 1983, following the release of the album I'm Ready, Cole entered a rehab facility in Connecticut, to her great credit.

After her release six months later, Cole signed with Modern Records, and released the album Dangerous.  In 1987, Natalie changed to EMI and released the album Everlasting.  Natalie was back with the single "I Live For Your Love".  While just missing the Top 10 at #13, more importantly, it reached #2 on the most popular format, Adult Contemporary.




Cole was recognized for the Everlasting album with another Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female.  Cole's remake of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" became her biggest international hit, reaching #4 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland and #5 in the United States, the U.K. and Germany, and helped Everlasting go Platinum, her first million-selling album in 10 years.  



In 1988, Cole appeared in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert.  The following year, Natalie released the album Good to Be Back, which included the multi-format hit "Miss You Like Crazy".  The single reached #1 on both the Adult Contemporary charts and #7 overall in the U.S., #2 in the U.K. and #4 in Ireland.





Cole was nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, for the entire album.  A second single, "Starting Over Again", hit #5 on the AC chart.





In 1991, Cole released the album Unforgettable...with Love on Elektra Records.  On the album, Natalie sang some of her father's most famous songs, and produced vocal arrangements.  Elektra released "Unforgettable", which featured a duet with Natalie and her father's recorded voice.  It peaked at #2 in Australia, and hit #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart, #10 on the R&B chart and #14 overall in the United States.

The single propelled the album to seven million copies sold in the United States alone.  Cole won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance (for "Unforgettable").  She also captured the American Music Award for Favorite Artist-Adult Contemporary.

In 1992, PBS broadcast a special based on the album, Unforgettable...with Love:  Natalie Cole Sings the Songs of Nat King Cole.  It received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Program and Cole was nominated for Outstanding Individual Performance.

Cole released another album of jazz standards, Take a Look, in 1993, which went Gold, and gave Natalie her seventh Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.  She wove a Christmas album, Holly & Ivy, into Gold as well.  Cole sang the U.S. National Anthem at Super Bowl XXVIII in January, 1994.

In 1996, another album of standards, Stardust, went Platinum.  Stardust contained another virtual duet with her father on "When I Fall In Love", which won Cole the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.  She was also nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance for the Stardust album.   




In 1997, Cole released the single "A Smile Like Yours", which reached #8 on the AC chart.






Cole has released four albums since.  In 1999, Cole was presented with the Hitmaker Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.  In 2003, Cole received her 18th Grammy nomination on a great duet with jazz legend Diana Krall.  The song was recognized at the Grammys with a nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

In 2010, Cole performed with Andrea Bocelli in a concert at the Kodak Theatre, for his album My Christmas

The incredible Cole has won nine Grammy awards out of an amazing 21 nominations.  She has sold 30 million records worldwide.  Natalie has enjoyed 11 Top 40 hits, with four of those going Top 10, and on the more important Adult Contemporary chart, she's had 19 hits, with six reaching the Top 10.

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