Natalie
Cole, a buoyantly jazzy singer who became a millionselling,
Grammywinning pop hitmaker with her 1975 debut album and went on to even
greater popularity when she followed the example of her father, Nat
(King) Cole to interpret prerock pop standards, died on Thursday in Los
Angeles. She was 65.
The
cause was “ongoing health issues,” her family said. Ms.Cole had
undergone a kidney transplant in 2009 and had suffered from other
ailments recently, forcing the cancellation of tour dates in November
and December.
Ms.
Cole had a light, supple, perpetually optimistic voice, full of
syncopated turns and airborne swoops, drawing on both the nuances of
jazz singing and the dynamics of gospel. It brought her millionselling
albums in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as she moved from the sound of her
own generation to that of her parents.
“The
biggest similarities between Ms. Cole and her father are in attitude.
Instead of working toward catharsis, they aspire to a genteel elegance,
balance and good feeling,” Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times in
1993. “But where the ultimate direction of the father’s singing was an
easy chair on a moonlit porch, his daughter’s tenser, more brittle
singing evokes an urban, indoor setting. To the decorous phrasing of a
big band singer she brings a steady current of soulmusic sassiness.”
Ms.
Cole was equally at home in the popsoul of her No. 1 1975 hit, “This
Will Be (An Everlasting Love),” and in her technologyassisted duet with
her father in 1991, based on his 1951 recording of “Unforgettable.”
Both songs brought her
Grammy Awards.
The “Unforgettable...with Love” album, on which Ms. Cole sang her
father’s hits, also swept the top Grammy Awards — including album,
record and song of the year — and sold 7 million copies in the United
States alone.
Yet
over a long career, Ms. Cole recorded a broad selections of material,
including Tin Pan Alley staples, songs written for her and songs by,
among others, Fiona Apple and Bruce Springsteen. Her most recent album,
in 2013, was “Natalie Cole en Español,” a collection of Latin pop
favorites that was nominated for Latin Grammy Awards.
Ms. Cole repeatedly overcame personal setbacks.
Her
first run of success in the 1970s was followed by struggles with
heroin, alcohol and crack cocaine addiction in the early 1980s, a period
she wrote about in her 2000 autobiography, “Angel on My Shoulder.” (She
played herself in “Livin’ for Love: The Natalie Cole Story,” a TV movie
based on the book.) She went through rehab in 1983.
“I
just can’t have fun with drugs the way some people can. They can get
high or have a drink and go home. I’m not like that,” she told The Los
Angeles Times in 1985.
In
2009, as a result of hepatitis C that she believed she had contracted
through past intravenous drug use, she underwent chemotherapy and a
kidney transplant. Her 2010 book, “Love Brought Me Back,” chronicled the
search for a donor. But she continued to perform well into 2015.
Natalie
Cole was born on Feb. 6, 1950, to Nat Cole and his wife, Maria Cole,
who had sung with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Natalie grew up
surrounded by music and celebrities, and she made her recording debut as
a child, singing with her father on a Christmas album. But after Nat
Cole’s death in 1965, she turned away from music. She majored in child
psychology and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in
1972.
But she was soon singing in clubs — though she resisted singing her father’s material.
“I
had to do my own songs in my own way,” she told Rolling Stone in 1977.
She was noticed by producers based in Chicago, Chuck Jackson and Marvin
Yancy, who wrote much of her early material. She married Mr. Yancy in
1976, the first of three marriages.
Ms. Cole is survived by her son, Robert Yancy, and her two sisters, Timolin Cole and Casey Cole.
Capitol
Records, which was also Nat Cole’s label, signed Natalie Cole and
released her 1975 debut album, “Inseparable,” which drew comparisons to
Aretha Franklin from reviewers and included the Top 10 single “This Will
Be (an Everlasting Love).” She was named Best New Artist at the 1976
Grammy Awards, where “This Will Be” also won as “Best R&B Vocal
Performance, Female.”
Ms.
Cole’s third album, “Unpredictable” in 1977, was also a Top 10 pop
album. She showed off her acrobatic live vocals on “Natalie Live” in
1978 and made a duet album, “We’re the Best of Friends,” with the
R&B crooner Peabo Bryson in 1979. But her pop profile dwindled, in
part due to her drug problems.
Her
career was revived in 1987, after rehab, with “Everlasting,” which
included three Top 10 pop singles: “Jump Start,” the ballad “I Live for
Your Love” and her version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac.”
Yet
it was with “Unforgettable...With Love” in 1991, leaping back to a
previous generation’s songs, that Ms. Cole would establish her latterday
career. “Unforgettable” reminded both radio programmers and the record
business that there was a large audience for music offering comfort far
from the cutting edge.
“The
shock of it all is that this record is getting airplay,” Ms. Cole said
in an interview at the time. “It’s absolutely shocking to see it between
Van Halen and Skid Row on the charts, totally out of its element. It
should be encouraging to record companies and my contemporaries.”
Yet
the Grammy sweep for “Unforgettable” in 1992 drew some criticism,
particularly since the Song of the Year was four decades old. In 1993,
the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences changed the Song of
the Year rules to make songs eligible only in the first year they were
recorded or rose to prominence.
But Ms. Cole’s new direction continued to yield both hits and awards.
Her
1993 album “Take a Look” and a 1994 Christmas album, “Holly & Ivy,”
both sold half a million copies; “Stardust,” another collection of
standards from 1996, eventually sold a million copies and brought her a
Grammy for another duet with her father, “When I Fall in Love.” Her 2008
album, “Still Unforgettable,” was named Best Traditional Pop Album.
Ms. Cole also did some acting, appearing in television series including “Grey’s Anatomy.”
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