Natalie Cole

Early life

On the evening of February 6, 1950, Natalie Cole was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, to American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Hawkins Ellington. Two hours later, her father—then working exclusively in L.A., having declined all out-of-town engagements prior to the baby's arrival—"brought down the house" at Eddie DeSure's Club Oasis with his opening selection, Kahn and Donaldson's "Yes Sir, That's My Baby".

Early career

Cole grew up listening to a variety of music that included Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. After graduation in 1972 she began singing at small clubs with her band, Black Magic. Clubs initially welcomed her because she was Nat King Cole's daughter, only to be disappointed when she began singing cover versions of R&B and rock songs.

Television and film career

Cole pursued a career in acting. She appeared several times in concerts or other music related programs, including the 1988 Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute with sidemen Richard Campbell, Jeffrey Worrell, Eddie Cole, and Dave Joyce.

Nature Boy

"Nature Boy" is a song first recorded by American jazz singer Nat King Cole. It was released on March 29, 1948, as a single by Capitol Records, and later appeared on the 1961 album The Nat King Cole Story.

It was written by eden ahbez as a tribute to Bill Pester, who practiced the Naturmensch and Lebensreform philosophies adopted by Ahbez. The lyrics of the song relate to a 1940s Los Angeles–based group called "Nature Boys", a subculture of proto-hippies of which Ahbez was a member.

Background and development

In 1941, a 33-year-old George McGrew arrived in Los Angeles and began playing piano in the Eutropheon, a small health food store and raw food restaurant on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The café was owned by John and Vera Richter, who followed a Naturmensch (nature person) and Lebensreform (life reform) philosophy influenced by the Wandervogel (Wandering Bird) movement in Germany. Their followers, known as "Nature Boys", wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits and vegetables. McGrew adopted the philosophy and chose the name "eden ahbez", writing and spelling his name with lower-case letters. It was there, while living in a cave near Palm Springs, that ahbez wrote "Nature Boy". Partly autobiographical, the song was a tribute to his...

Recording and composition

Cole's recording, which took place on August 22, 1947, featured an orchestra conducted by Frank De Vol—the in-house arranger of Capitol Records. He used strings and flute as instrumentation in the song, to capture the "enchanting" vibe of the track. The first two measures of the song's melody parallel the melody of the second movement in composer Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 (1887). Written as a pop ballad, "Nature Boy" follows an "A,B" format, with the primary three notes descending on a minor triad above the pickup note.

Release and reception

In 1948, a second "Petrillo ban" on music recording was enforced by American Federation of Musicians (AFM) in response to the Taft–Hartley Act. Capitol Records, desperate to release recorded material to help sustain profitability during the strike, released "Nature Boy" as a single on March 29, 1948, with catalog number 15054. Crestview Music, which owned the publishing rights to Cole's songs, sold the rights for "Nature Boy" to Burke-Van Heusen, who acted as distributor and selling agent. The record debuted on the Billboard pop charts of April 16, 1948, and stayed there for 15 weeks, ultimately peaking at number one. It also reached a peak of number two on the R&B charts. "Nature Boy" went on to sell a million copies in 1948 and Billboard...