Nat "King" Cole (March 17th 1919–February 15th 1965) was a popular America… Read Full Bio ↴Nat "King" Cole (March 17th 1919–February 15th 1965) was a popular American singer and jazz musician.

As a piano player, he formed a jazz trio in 1938 that played Los Angeles nightclubs, one of the first jazz trios featuring guitar and piano. Prior to this he had played music since he was a child and had worked with bands since he was sixteen. He was raised in Chicago and exposed to the abundant jazz scene there. He was heavily influenced by pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines.

Later he became more popularly known as a singer and crooner and his work became more orchestrated.

His first mainstream vocal hit was in 1944 with Straighten Up and Fly Right, based on a black folk tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Although hardly a rocker, the song's success proved that an audience for folk-based material existed. It is considered a predecessor to the first rock and roll records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of folk material, counted Cole as an influence.

Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more pop-oriented material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a string orchestra. His stature as a popular icon was cemented during this period with such hits as The Christmas Song (1946), Nature Boy (1948), Mona Lisa (1950), and his signature tune Unforgettable (1951). While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of selling out, he never totally abandoned his musical roots; as late as 1956, for instance, he recorded an all-jazz album, After Midnight. In 1991, Mosaic Records released the Complete Nat King Cole Trio Recordings on Capitol, which contained 349 songs on twenty-seven LPs or eighteen CDs.

Throughout the 1950s Cole continued to rack up hit after hit, including Smile, Pretend, A Blossom Fell, and If I May. Most of his pop hits were collaborations with famed arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle. It was with Riddle that Cole released his first ten-inch long-play album in 1953 entitled Sings for Two in Love. Several more albums followed, including the Gordon Jenkins arranged Love Is the Thing, which reached number one on the album charts in April 1957.

Inspired by a trip to Havana, Cuba in 1958, Nat went back there that same year and recorded Cole Espanol, an album sung entirely in Spanish and Portuguese. The album was a hit not only in the U.S., but in Latin America as well. The album was so popular, that two others followed: A mis amigos in 1959, and More Cole Espanol in 1962.

Musical tastes were changing in the late 1950s, and despite a successful stab at rock n' roll with Send for Me, Cole's ballad singing had grown old to younger listeners. Like contemporaries Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Nat found that the pop singles chart had been almost entirely taken over by youth oriented acts. In 1960, Nat's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle, left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's newly formed Reprise Records label. The two parted ways with one final hit album Wild Is Love, based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne. Nat would later re-tool the concept album into an off-Broadway production called I'm With You.

As the 1960s progressed, Nat once again found success on the American singles chart, starting with the country/pop flavored hit Ramblin' Rose in August of 1962. Three more hit singles followed: Dear Lonely Hearts, Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer, and That Sunday, That Summer. Nat's final album was entitled L.O.V.E, and was recorded in late 1964. It was released just prior to his death and reached number four on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album went gold in 1968. His 1957 song When I Fall in Love was a chart topping hit for the U.K. in 1987.

Cole was the first African-American to have his own radio program. He repeated that success in the late-1950s with the first truly national television show starring an African-American. In both cases, the programs were ultimately canceled because sponsors shied away from a black artist. Cole fought racism all his life, refusing to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by members of the White Citizens' Council who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. Despite injuries, Cole completed the show but vowed never to perform in the South again.

On 23rd August 1956, Cole spoke at the Republican National Convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California. He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960, to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy. Cole was also among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Nat King Cole frequently consulted with President Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on the issue of civil rights. Yet he was dogged by critics, who felt he shied away from controversy when it came to the civil rights issue. Among the most notable was Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was upset that Cole didn't take stronger action after the 1956 on-stage attack.

In 1948, Cole purchased a house in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The property owners association told Cole they didn't want any undesirables moving in, to which Cole retorted "Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain."

He and his second wife, Maria Ellington, were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. They had five children, including twin girls. Daughter Carol Cole, and son Kelly Cole were adopted. Kelly Cole died in 1995. Nat's daughter, Natalie Cole, and his younger brother, Freddie Cole are also singers.

Natalie and her father had an unexpected hit in the summer of 1991. The younger Cole mixed a 1961 recording of her father's rendition of Unforgettable with her own voice, creating an electronic duet. Both the song and the album of the same name won several Grammy awards the following year.

Cole performed in many short films, and played W. C. Handy in the film Saint Louis Blues. He also appeared in The Nat King Cole Story, China Gate, and The Blue Gardenia.

Nat King Cole was a heavy smoker of Kool menthol cigarettes, believing that smoking up to three packs a day gave his voice the rich sound it had (Cole would smoke several cigarettes in rapid succession before a recording for this very purpose). Cole died of lung cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, on 15th February 1965. His funeral was held at St. Victor's Catholic Church in West Hollywood, and he was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Cat Ballou, his final film, was released several months later.

El Choclo
Nat King Cole Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Con este tango que es burlon y compadrito
Se ato dos alas la ambision de mi suburbio
Con este tango nacio el cielo y con un grito
Salio del sordido barrial buscando el cielo
Conjuro extraño de un amor hecho carencia

Que abrio caminos sin mas ley que su esperanza
Mesclas de rabia, de dolor, de fe, de ausencia

Llorando en la inocencia de un ritmo jugueton
Por tu milagro de notas agoreras
Nacieron sin pensarlo las paicas y las grelas

Luna en los charcos, canyengue en las caderas
Y un ansia fiera en la manera de querer
Al evocarte, tango querido
Siento que tiembran las baldosas de un bailongo
Y oigo el resongo de mi pasado

Hoy que no tengo
Mas que a mi madre

Siento que llega en punta e' pie para besarme
Cuando tu canto nace al son de un bandoneon

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Nat King Cole's song "El Choclo" speak to the power of tango music in the lives of those from the suburbs. The first verse speaks of how the tango with its mocking and teasing nature gave hope and ambition to those from the suburbs. The second verse describes the strange spell that the tango casts, a mixture of rage, pain, faith, and absence, all pouring out in the playful rhythm of the dance. The third verse speaks of the birth of the paicas and grelas, two types of tango dance, which were born from the miracle of the ominous notes of the tango.

The final verse speaks of the power of the tango to transport the singer to past memories. His mother arrives to embrace him silently as he listens to the tango's bandoneon. These lyrics evoke the intense emotional power of the tango, and how it truly captures the essence of life.

Line by Line Meaning

Con este tango que es burlon why compadrito
This mocking and slangy tango embodies the character of my neighborhood.

Se ato dos alas la ambision de mi suburbio
My neighborhood's ambition took flight with the rise of this tango.

Con este tango nacio el cielo why con un grito
This tango gave birth to a new world, screaming for recognition.

Salio del sordido barrial buscando el cielo
It emerged from the lowly streets, yearning for greater heights.

Conjuro extraño de un amor hecho carencia
It is a strange spell of love born out of deprivation.

Que abrio caminos sin mas ley que su esperanza
It blazed trails with nothing but its hope as a guide.

Mesclas de rabia, de dolor, de fe, de ausencia
It mixes anger, pain, faith, and longing.

Llorando en la inocencia de un ritmo jugueton
Crying in the innocence of a playful rhythm.

Por tu milagro de notas agoreras
Thanks to your miraculous foretelling notes,

Nacieron sin pensarlo las paicas why las grelas
The paicas and the grelas were born without even realizing it.

Luna en los charcos, canyengue en las caderas
Moonlight in puddles, sensuality in every sway.

Why un ansia fiera en la manera de querer
A fierce desire in the way it loves.

Al evocarte, tango querido
As I evoke you, beloved tango,

Siento que tiembran las baldosas de un bailongo
I feel the dance floor tremble beneath my feet.

Why oigo el resongo de mi pasado
And I hear the echo of my past.

Hoy que no tengo
Now that I have nothing

Mas que a mi madre
But my mother

Siento que llega en punta e' pie para besarme
I feel her sneaking up to give me a kiss.

Cuando tu canto nace al son de un bandoneon....
Whenever your voice rises with the beat of a bandoneon....

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, ACUM Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Bill Schluger, Nat King Cole

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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