Natalie Cole
Stephanie Natalie Maria Coles (born
February 6,
1950), known professionally as
Natalie Cole is a
Grammy Award-winning American singer and songwriter.
The daughter of celebrated
crooner Nat King Cole, she 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. 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. Cole is currently working on another jazz recording set for release later this year.
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. [
1]
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
Unforgettable... With Love.
*
1975 Inseparable #18 US Pop Gold
*
1976 Natalie #7 US R&B/#13 US Pop: Gold
*
1977 Thankful #15 US R&B/#16 US Pop: Platinum
*
1977 Unpredictable (Natalie Cole Album) #1 R&B/ #8 pop Platinum
*
1978 Natalie Live! #31 US Pop
*
1979 I Love You So #9 US R&B/#52 US Pop: 2x Platinum
*
1979 We're the Best of Friends (w/
Peabo Bryson) #44 US Pop
*
1980 Don't Look Back #22 US R&B/#77 US Pop: 3x Platinum
*
1981 Happy Love #13 US R&B/#132 US Pop: Gold
*
1983 I'm Ready #6 US R&B/#182 US Pop: 3x Platinum
*
1985 Dangerous #9 US R&B/#140 US Pop: Platinum
*
1987 Everlasting #5 US R&B/#42 US Pop: 4x Platinum UK: #62
*
1989 Good to Be Back #4 US R&B/#59 US Pop: 3x Platinum UK: #10
*
1991 Unforgettable... with Love #1 (5 weeks) US: 7x Platinum UK: #11
*
1993 Take a Look #3 US R&B/#26 US Pop: 4x Platinum UK: #16
*
1994 Holly & Ivy #36 US Pop: Gold
*
1995 A Celebration of Christmas (w/
José Carreras and
Plácido Domingo) #196 US Pop
*
1997 Stardust #20 US Pop
*
1998 Christmas with You*
1999 Snowfall on the Sahara *
1999 The Magic of Christmas*
2000 Greatest Hits: Vol. 1*
2002 Ask a Woman Who Knows #32 US Pop
*
2006 Leavin' (release date September 26, 2006)
US Hot 100 chart singles:
*"
This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" 1975 - #6 pop #1 R&B
*"Inseparable" 1976 - #32 pop #1 R&B
*"Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady)" 1976 - #25 pop #1 R&B
*"Mr. Melody" 1976 - #49 pop #10 R&B
*"I've Got Love On My Mind" 1977 - #5 pop
#1 R&B
*"Party Lights" 1977 - #79 pop #8 R&b
*"Our Love" 1978 - #10
*"Someone That I Used To Love" 1980 - #21
*"Dangerous" 1985 - #57
*"A Little Bit Of Heaven" 1985 - #81
*"Jump Start" 1987 - #13
*"I Live For Your Love" 1988 - #13
*"Pink Cadillac" 1988 - #5 (originally the B-side to Bruce Springsteen's 1984 hit "Dancing In The Dark")
*"When I Fall In Love" 1988 - #95
*"Miss You Like Crazy" 1989 - #7 pop #1 R&B
*"Wild Women Do" 1990 - #34 (from the movie Pretty Woman)
*"Unforgettable" w/Nat "King" Cole 1991 - #14 pop
*"A Smile Like Yours" 1997 - #84 (title song from the movie)US Adult Contemporary chart singles:
*"This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" 1975 - #45
*"Inseparable" 1976 - #20
*"Mr. Melody" 1976 - #25
*"I've Got Love On My Mind" 1977 - #45
*"Our Love" 1978 - #33
*"Someone That I Used To Love" 1980 - #3
*"A Little Bit Of Heaven" 1985 - #11
*"I Live For Your Love" 1987 - #2
*"Over You" w/Ray Parker Jr. 1988 - #38
*"Pink Cadillac" 1988 - #16
*"When I Fall In Love" 1988 - #14
*"Miss You Like Crazy" 1989 - #1 (1 week)
*"I Do" w/Freddie Jackson 1989 - #15
*"Starting Over Again" 1990 - #5
*"Unforgettable" 1991 - #3
*"The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)" 1991 - #22
*"The Very Thought Of You" 1992 - #34
*"Take A Look" 1993 - #35
*"A Smile Like Yours" 1997 - #8
*"Snowfall On The Sahara" 1999 - #25
*"Angel On My Shoulder" 2000 - #14UK chart singles:
*"This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" 1975 - #32
*"Jump Start" 1987 - #44; 1988 - #36 (re-issue)
*"Over You" w/Ray Parker Jr. 1987 - #65
*"Pink Cadillac" 1988 - #5
*"Everlasting" 1988 - #28
*"I Live For Your Love" 1989 (belated issue) - #23
*"Miss You Like Crazy" 1989 - #2
*"Best Of The Night" 1989 - #56
*"Starting Over Again" 1989 - #56
*"Wild Women Do" 1990 - #16
*"Unforgettable" 1991 - #19
*"The Very Thought Of You" 1992 - #71
Other noteworthy singles:
*"Grown Up Christmas List" (David Foster f/Natalie Cole) 1990 (later covered by many other artists, including Amy Grant and Kelly Clarkson)*List of number-one dance hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
