Natalie Maria Cole (February 6, 1950 – December 31, 2015) was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was the daughter of American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to success in the mid-1970s as an R&B singer with the hits “This Will Be”, “Inseparable” (1975), and “Our Love” (1977). She returned as a pop singer on the 1987 album Everlasting and her cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac”. In the 1990s, she sang traditional pop by her father, resulting in her biggest success, Unforgettable… with Love, which sold over seven million copies and won her seven Grammy Awards. She sold over 30 million records worldwide.
Cole announced in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, which is a liver disease that is spread through contact with infected blood. Cole attributed having the disease to her past intravenous drug use. Cole explained in 2009 that hepatitis C had “stayed in [her] body for 25 years, and it could still happen to addicts who are fooling around with drugs, especially needles.”
Four months after starting treatment for hepatitis C, Cole experienced kidney failure and required dialysis three times a week for nine months. Following her appeal for a kidney on the Larry King Show, she was contacted by the organ procurement agency One Legacy, in May 2009. The facilitated donation came from a family requesting that, if there were a match, their donor’s kidney be designated for Cole.
Cole canceled several events in December 2015 due to illness; her last musical performance was a short set of three songs in Manila. She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 2015, at the age of 65. Cole’s publicist said the singer’s death was the result of congestive heart failure, which her family said was a complication of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, which she had been diagnosed with after her kidney transplant in 2009. Her family said in a statement, “Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived… with dignity, strength and honor. Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain unforgettable in our hearts forever.”
Cole’s funeral was held on January 11, 2016, at the West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles. David Foster, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie, Chaka Khan, Eddie Levert, Mary Wilson, Gladys Knight, Ledisi, Jesse Jackson, Angela Bassett, Denise Nicholas, Marla Gibbs, Jackée Harry and Freda Payne were among the mourners at the funeral. After the funeral, she was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Her grave is located in the central lawn area of the ‘Court of Freedom’ section, Garden of Honor; there is no public access to her grave. (wikipedia)
Unforgettable… with Love, also known as simply Unforgettable, is the thirteenth studio album by American singer Natalie Cole. Released on June 11, 1991, the album includes covers of standards previously performed by her father, Nat King Cole. It was also her debut for Elektra Records, after being given her release from EMI Records.
The record was very successful in the pop, jazz, and R&B markets and was considered the major comeback recording that had been brewing since Cole’s late 1980s releases. The album was certified 7× platinum as of 2009 by the RIAA. The album won the 1992 Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Engineered – Non-Classical, while the track “Unforgettable” (duet with her father Nat King Cole) won three additional Grammys: Record of the Year, Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, and Arrangement Accompanying Vocals. The album also won Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Album, Female the same year.
Two albums prior to this one (1987’s Everlasting and 1989’s Good to Be Back) also moved to Elektra after Cole signed with the label. Her uncle Ike Cole plays piano on the album.
As of 2016 the album has sold 6.2 million copies in the United States according to Nielsen Music.(wikipedia)
A major change of direction for Natalie Cole, Unforgettable found the singer abandoning the type of R&B/pop she’d been recording since 1975 in favor of jazz-influenced pre-rock pop along the lines of Nat King Cole’s music. It was a surprising risk that paid off handsomely — both commercially and artistically. Naysayers who thought that so radical a change would be commercial suicide were proven wrong when the outstanding Unforgettable sold a shocking five million units. Quite clearly, this was an album Cole was dying to make. Paying tribute to her late father on “Mona Lisa,” “Nature Boy,” “Route 66,” and other gems that had been major hits for him in the 1940s and early ’50s, the 41-year-old Cole sounds more inspired than she had in well over a decade.
On the title song, overdubbing was used to make it sound as though she were singing a duet with her father — dishonest perhaps, but certainly enjoyable. Thankfully, standards and pre-rock pop turned out to be a primary direction for Cole, who was a baby when the title song became a hit for her father in 1951. (by Alex Henderson)
Personnel:
I was too lazy to type out all these names:
Tracklist:
01. The Very Thought Of You (Noble) 4.16
02. Paper Moon (Arlen/Harburg/Rose) 3.25
03. Route 66 (Troup) 3.01
04. Mona Lisa (Evans/Livingston) 3.46
05. L-O-V-E (Gabler/Kaempfert) 2.31
06. This Can’t Be Love (Hart/Rodgers) 2.14
07. Smile (Chaplin/Parsons/Turner) 3.38
08. Lush Life (Strayhorn) 4.20
09. That Sunday That Summer (Sherman/Weiss) 3.31
10. Orange Colored Sky (Delugg/Stein) 2.27
11. A Medley: For Sentimental Reasons/Tenderly/Autumn Leaves (Best/Gross/Kosma/ Mercer/Prévert/Watson) 7.32
12. Straighten Up And Fly Right (Cole/Mills) 2.40
13. Avalon (DeSylva/Jolson/Rose) 1.51
14. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (Ellington/Russell) 2.34
15. Too Young (Dee/Lippman) 4.32
16. Nature Boy (Ahbez) 3.24
17. Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup (Sosenko) 3.25
18. Almost Like Being in Love (Lerner/Loewe) 2.11
19. Thou Swell (Hart/Rodgers) 1.50
20. Non Dimenticar (Dobbins/Galdieri/Prévert/Redi) 2.57
21. Our Love Is Here To Stay (G.Gershwin/I.Gershwin) 3.29
22. Unforgettable (Gordon) 3.28
More from Natalie Cole:
The official website:
Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues is a 2001 album by Tony Bennett featuring duets with notable vocalists.
Unforgettable… with Love, also known as simply Unforgettable, is a 1991 album by American singer Natalie Cole. Released on June 11, 1991, The album focuses on covers of standards previously performed by her father, Nat King Cole. It was also her debut for Elektra Records, after being given her release from Capitol Records.
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