Cole was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin, since its inception in 1967. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.
More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's I've Got Love On My Mind, as well as Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady) (1976), Our Love (1978), and Someone That I Used To Love (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles. But then her career hit a snag in the early 1980s due to a severe drug problem. By 1985, Natalie was clean, sober, and in fine voice, and ready to begin her comeback in earnest with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label.
In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad I Live for Your Love. This album was the one that put Natalie Cole firmly back in the spotlight, yielding three major hit singles: Jump Start, "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a taste of things to come in her career with a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart. In 1989, the aptly-titled Good To Be Back gave her another across-the-board smash with "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).
However, it was her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits, that gave her the most success. Ironically, when Natalie began her career, she was determined not to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level. But Unforgettable... With Love certainly paid off. The set sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold. The one sour spot in the album's success was that it strained Natalie's already-tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, who said in interviews at the time that she couldn't listen to the album or attend any of her daughter's concerts because she felt that the music really belonged to her late husband.
Natalie has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours," #8 AC and #84 Pop in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
Battle With Drugs
In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life. In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. Cole said she began experimenting with drugs while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975. Cole continued to spiral out of control - including an incident in which her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy were on a drug binge - until she entered rehab in 1983.
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.
Natalie has been married three times and has a son Robert Yancy (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced the Grammy Award-winning Unforgettable... With Love, Natalie's love offering featuring songs made famous by her father, including a faux-duet between her and her father.
The marriage to Fischer ended in divorce a few years later, amidst rumors of domestic verbal and physical abuse.
It has also been reported that Natalie has recovered from a life-threatening hepatitis illness (most likely the cause of her years of drug abuse) by having a liver transplant.
Miss Cole went on to release more albums after Unforgettable...With Love, with most of them featuring jazz-oriented standard songs or pop-song remakes. None of the albums were nearly as successful as Unforgettable...With Love.
As of 2013, Natalie Cole spent most of her professional time covering the concert circuit entertaining audiences around the world with her hits.
On December 31, 2015, Natalie Cole died from congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was aged 65.
Calypso Blues
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice,
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice
Dese yankee hot dogs
Don't treat me stomach very nice.
In Trinidad, one dollar buy
Papaya juice, banana pie,
Six coconut, one female goat,
An' plenty fish to fill de boat.
One bushel bread, one barrel wine,
An' all de town, she come to dine.
But here is bad, one dollar buy
Cup of coffee, ham on rye.
Me throat she sick from necktie,
Me feet hurt from shoes.
Me pocket full of empty,
I got Calypso blues.
Dese yankee girl give me big scare,
Is black de root, is blonde de hair.
Her eyelash false, her face is paint,
And pads are where de girl she ain't
She jitterbug when she should waltz,
I even think her name is false.
But calypso girl is good a lot,
Is what you see, is what she got.
Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Me heart, she feel so sad
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
Natalie Cole's "Calypso Blues" is a lamentation of a Trinidadian man who is homesick and unhappy in America. He misses his hometown of Trinidad, where he had the luxuries of calypso music, good food, and a happy heart. The opening lines of the song display an example of onomatopoeia, where the repetition of "wa-oo-oo" serves to emphasize the feeling of sadness and loneliness felt by the singer. He describes sitting by the ocean and feeling miserable because he can't afford to go back to his homeland. Cole's soulful voice creates a mood of nostalgia, longing, and loneliness.
The calypso woman underlines the lure of Trinidad. The singer craves for her culinary creations such as shrimp and rice. Still, in America, he is forced to eat hot dogs, which he says don't agree with his stomach. The contrast between the food in Trinidad and America serves to show how much he misses his hometown and how living in America has forced him to make significant sacrifices.
The singer goes on to describe how different life is in America in comparison to Trinidad, where everything is cheap and people are happy. America is portrayed as soulless, where everything costs exorbitant amounts of money, and people are fake. He describes how he feels estranged from the American culture and how different the country is from what he grew up knowing.
Line by Line Meaning
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
The song starts with a catchy refrain meant to evoke the sounds of Trinidadian music.
Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Me heart, she feel so sad...
The singer is sitting by the ocean and feeling sad because they cannot afford to go back to Trinidad. The repetition of the line reinforces the theme of homesickness that runs throughout the song.
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.
The singer lacks the financial means to return to Trinidad, which makes them feel even sadder.
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice,
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice
Dese yankee hot dogs
Don't treat me stomach very nice.
The artist is nostalgic for the food in Trinidad, which was prepared by a fine calypso woman. In contrast, the food in America (represented by Yankee hot dogs) does not agree with them.
In Trinidad, one dollar buy
Papaya juice, banana pie,
Six coconut, one female goat,
An' plenty fish to fill de boat.
One bushel bread, one barrel wine,
An' all de town, she come to dine.
The artist reminisces about how inexpensive and abundant everything was in Trinidad. A single dollar could buy them a variety of goods - from food and drink to livestock - and everyone in town would come together to enjoy a meal.
But here is bad, one dollar buy
Cup of coffee, ham on rye.
Me throat she sick from necktie,
Me feet hurt from shoes.
Me pocket full of empty,
I got Calypso blues.
In contrast, the singer finds America to be expensive and uncomfortable. They are wearing unfamiliar clothing (a necktie) that makes them feel sick and uncomfortable shoes that hurt their feet. They are also low on funds ('pocket full of empty') and feeling sad and homesick.
Dese yankee girl give me big scare,
Is black de root, is blonde de hair.
Her eyelash false, her face is paint,
And pads are where de girl she ain't
The singer is uncomfortable with some of the women in America. They describe one as being deceptive, with dark roots and blonde hair, fake eyelashes, and makeup. They also mention that pads are where the woman 'she ain't,' implying that she is wearing padded undergarments to enhance her figure.
She jitterbug when she should waltz,
I even think her name is false.
But calypso girl is good a lot,
Is what you see, is what she got.
The artist contrasts the American women who are fake and misleading with the calypso girl, who is straightforward and genuine. The calypso girl knows how to dance to her native music and her name is presumably her true identity. What you see is what you get with her.
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay
The song ends with another repetition of the catchy refrain, emphasizing the dichotomy between the artist's longing for home and their current reality in America.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Nat King Cole, Don George
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@NAJErEa91
I literally woke up singing this song this morning! Queen Natalie Cole is eternal! adorned like the Queen artiste that she is! beautiful elegant classy timeless! love her so dearly! :D
@NAJErEa91
@3:47 yes that reformed lol Yankee lol girl lol had one job! and she nailed it! the reverb sounded lovely on her voice too :D just all-around gr8 performance! the musicians were/are magicians :D
@berthonpowell7366
Marvellous....island flavor
RIP sweet lady❤
@THembrey313
Beautiful rendition, Natalie can sing anything!!!!
@AnthonyWilliams-jn9hc
Yeah she can........
@user-uy3vy4mb7f
Rry😢ttttt😢ŷ6y😢😢70's😢y6y😢😢😢 guy😢😢😢😢😢yy😢
@LisaSimpsonRules
She had so much class and a beautiful voice.
@Hadacol333
There are certain individual people that I feel almost transcend humanity. Natalie Cole was one such. Watching her perform songs like this brings tears to my eyes because she was removed from our midst before her time. Her visual, vocal and personality exquisiteness are a joy to behold!
Sadly, the small human part of her overall angelic presence, proved to be her undoing. But she made our lives richer for the too short time she was here.
@NAJErEa91
so well said! :)
@anitagaravelli6900
...amen...❤