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.
Solamente Una Vez
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Ame en la vida,
Solamente una vez
Y nada mas
Una vez, nada mas
En mi huerto brillo la esperanza,
La esperanza que alumbra el camino
De mi soledad
Una vez, nada mas
Se entrega el alma
Con la dulce y total
Renunciacion
Y cuando ese milagro realiza
El prodigio de amarse
Hay campanas de fiesta que cantan
En el corazon
The opening lines of Solamente Una Vez indicate that the singer has loved only once in her life. The song is all about that one epic, passionate love that remains unmatched throughout a lifetime. The lyrics follow a wistful, nostalgic tone, suggesting that the love has already passed, and the singer is only looking back on it, cherishing it. She repeats the phrase "Una vez, nada mas" to emphasize the simplicity and irreplaceable nature of her love. The singer talks about how her "huerto brillo la esperanza" - which translates to "hope shone in my garden" - indicating that the love gave her life, granting her hope and illuminating her solitary path.
She talks of the manner in which the soul surrenders, giving everything it has, sacrificing everything for the sake of love. The way she describes that moment is entirely romantic as it portrays that love is a form of exaltation and complete denial of self. The singer reflects upon the magical aspect of love and how it can move mountains, and then goes on to describe bells of celebration ringing in the heart when the miracle of love happens.
Line by Line Meaning
Solamente una vez
Only one time
Ame en la vida
I loved in life
Solamente una vez
Only one time
Y nada mas
And nothing more
Una vez, nada mas
Once, nothing more
En mi huerto brillo la esperanza
In my garden, hope shone
La esperanza que alumbra el camino
The hope that illuminates the path
De mi soledad
Of my solitude
Una vez, nada mas
Once, nothing more
Se entrega el alma
The soul is surrendered
Con la dulce y total
With the sweet and total
Renunciacion
Renunciation
Y cuando ese milagro realiza
And when that miracle is realized
El prodigio de amarse
The miracle of loving each other
Hay campanas de fiesta que cantan
There are festive bells ringing
En el corazon
In the heart
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Agustin Lara
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
joey burrell
Stunningly beautiful song. She was so incredible, just like her dad.❤👍👍👍
Ernesto Guevara
Mucho mejor su acento español.Nat hablaba como gringo nuestro idioma
Dayse Lessa
Voz doce e música inesquecivel
Raymundo Aviso Jr.
Nathalie Cole, the unforgettable, we missed you like crazy.
Enrique Munera
La mejor voz femenina de los últimas decadas, lástima que nos dejara tan joven
Luciano Caetano
QUE MULHER MARAVILHOSA ,SENSUAL,DE CLASSE E VOZ AVELUDADA. QUE OS CÉUS TE ESCUTEM.
Sandra Regina💎
Que música linda, dá vontade de dançar 💃🏻👈🏼👏🏻🎶👍🏻❤️👈🏼
Rubens Alberto De George
A verdade mais vetdadeira na vida ...podem passar muitos amores,mas apenas uma vez é o amor real e total !!!...
Ernesto Guevara
Bellísima voz .Linda interpretación❤
suzipuma
Just beautiful! ❤️❤️❤️❤️