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.
Dindi
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With far away clouds just wandering by
Where do they go? Oh, I don't know, don't know
Wind that speaks to the leaves
Telling Stories that no one believes
Stories of love belong to you and me
I would say all the beautiful things that I see
When you're with me, oh, my Dindi
Oh Dindi, like the song of the wind in the trees
That's how my heart is singing Dindi
Happy Dindi when you're with me
I love you more each day, yes, I do, yes, I do
I'd let you go away if you take me with you
Don't you know, my Dindi?
I'd be running and searching for you
Like a river that can't find the sea
That would be me without you, my Dindi
I love you more each day, yes, I do, yes, I do
I'd let you go away if you take me with you
Don't you know, Dindi?
I'd be running and searching for you
Like a river that can't find the sea
That would be me without you, without you, yeah
My Dindi, my Dindi, my Dindi
The lyrics to Natalie Cole's song Dindi capture a sense of wonder and awe at the beauty of nature and the power of love. The first stanza describes the vastness of the sky, with clouds drifting aimlessly through it. The second stanza speaks of the wind, which tells stories that no one believes, but which are a testament to the power of love that exists between two people - in this case, the singer and Dindi.
The refrain of the song expresses the longing of the singer to express the beauty that they see when they are with Dindi. The love between them is so strong that it cannot be expressed in words but is like the song of the wind in the trees. The final stanza returns to the theme of the singer's longing for Dindi, expressing the idea that without Dindi, the singer is like a river that cannot find its way to the sea.
Overall, the song captures a sense of longing and desire, as well as a reverence for the beauty of nature and the power of love.
Line by Line Meaning
Sky so vast is the sky
The sky is boundless and seemingly infinite.
With far away clouds just wandering by
Clouds are floating aimlessly in the vast sky.
Where do they go? Oh, I don't know, don't know
The destination of the wandering clouds is unknown.
Wind that speaks to the leaves
The wind is blowing, and it gently rustles the leaves on the trees.
Telling Stories that no one believes
The rustling of the leaves makes sounds that bring stories nobody listens to.
Stories of love belong to you and me
The tales of love belong to lovers.
Oh Dindi, if I only had words
The singer's love for Dindi feels so intense that it's hard to express in words.
I would say all the beautiful things that I see
If the singer could, they would express all the beautiful things they perceive about Dindi.
When you're with me, oh, my Dindi
Dindi's presence makes the singer feel enraptured.
Oh Dindi, like the song of the wind in the trees
Dindi is beautiful like the melodies that the wind creates in the trees.
That's how my heart is singing Dindi
The singer's heart sings in praise of Dindi.
Happy Dindi when you're with me
Dindi's presence makes the singer very happy.
I love you more each day, yes, I do, yes, I do
The singer's love for Dindi increases every day.
I'd let you go away if you take me with you
The singer is willing to go anywhere as long as Dindi is with them.
Don't you know, my Dindi?
The singer is asking if Dindi knows how much they are loved.
I'd be running and searching for you
Without Dindi, the singer would feel incomplete and would be searching for their beloved.
Like a river that can't find the sea
The singer would feel lost and incomplete without Dindi, like a river that can't find its way to the sea.
That would be me without you, my Dindi
The singer would be lost and empty without Dindi's presence in their life.
My Dindi, my Dindi, my Dindi
The singer repeats Dindi's name as a form of affection and endearment.
Lyrics © CORCOVADO MUSIC CORPORATION
Written by: Aloysio De Oliveira, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ray Gilbert
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind