Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Natalie Cole

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:

Natalie Cole

In my own personal big gay church, there is a wing dedicated to what can only be described as...The True Divas. These are ones who may do many things in life, but from the moment they opened their mouths to sing they became the one thing they were meant to become: a true diva.

One such silky, electric soul?

Natalie Cole.

She has always been more than her father's daughter.

And she persevered, despite her mother's disapproval.

With a voice as precise as it is elegant, her magic is, indeed, unforgettable.

Her tone - brilliant. Her phrasing - impeccable. Her gift? Her own.

Very few singers have traversed the ever changing road winding its way through the musical landscape with such ease and success. 

You could not keep the lady down.

Sure, she had her hard times; difficulties that would have destroyed a lesser talent. 

But, from day one, she was a consummate professional, always putting her audience first and foremost. And as much as she loved recording, she was never happier than when standing live in front of a band in full swing.

Her abundant kindness, warmth and strength remain apparent to even those who never had the pleasure of meeting her. 

She lived gracefully and honestly. She owned her mistakes and strived to do better.

And it's all still there, very much alive, in her music, for all time...

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The Topic: Growing Up Cole

 

"We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways."

"I don't think that my parents even imagined that I would be exposed to drugs. In those days, for some reason, it was not talked about, just like sex was not talked about."

"There's inevitably something missing when you grow up in this kind of an environment when your parents travel a lot. When your father is famous, you are looked at and expected of. There are standards you need to meet."

"I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra."

"I was madly in love with Elvis Presley. Dad wasn't into it at all, at least not for himself as a performer. He used to say, 'Mr. Cole does not rock n' roll.'"

"I continually acted up to get attention. My father gave me that, and once he left, I felt that I didn't have any."

"I didn't realize I was still grieving for my father at 30-something."

"When I was old enough to walk home alone from school, I loved seeing our house from a distance. It sat on the corner of South Muirfield Road and West 4th Street and had this proud, majestic look. But I rarely went through the front door. The back was more dramatic."

"The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream - even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948."

"As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids."

"Like my father, I don't want to see anyone mistreated, anything like that. I'm very racial-conscious because my father had a lot of, you know, challenges in the area of race. I'm very sensitive to that kind of issue."

"My father was a pioneer in so many ways. He was fearless, and I think that I kind of picked that up from him as well."

"My father led by example. He wasn't much of a talker - he walked life."

"People said when I started, 'Why don't you just copy your father's style?' I had to be myself, singing my songs in my own way."

"I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material."

"When I sang my father's songs in concert, that was all people wanted to hear. I was always asking myself, 'Can I measure up?'"

"I don't think anyone can measure up to what my father had achieved. I'm just happy to at least play some of his music, but he is really the one who was the pioneer, the one who started all this. He's really The King."

"I can laugh at myself because I've had to. Everything would have been much worse if I'd been the singing son of Nat 'King' Cole."

"Being my dad's daughter has allowed me to do a lot of things that maybe another artist might not be able to do or wouldn't be necessarily embraced doing."

"I'll never totally get away from being who I am, which first, to many, is the daughter of Nat King Cole, which became even more intensified with the Unforgettable album."

"Nothing had been attempted like that, to lift Dad's voice, literally, off of that track and put it on a brand-new one, and then line it up, match it up, get the phrasing right. I remember listening - everyone listening at the end, and we were just enthralled. It was really wonderful."

"I thank my dad for leaving me such a wonderful, wonderful heritage."

This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) - Natalie Cole

Pink Cadillac - Natalie Cole

Livin' For Love - Natalie Cole

And one last parting shot...

"What's really important? That I'm an individual, I guess. I am an individual - a strong one, too. I'm Natalie Cole. I gotta be me."