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Here is Orange County DJ/MC Bill Lovelace with The Great Natalie Cole
Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, resulted in chart success with the single "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" (#1 R&B, #6 Pop). Her performance of the song won her a 1976 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. This was a feat because Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin had heretofore won this cateogory 8 years in a row from 1968 - 1975. She was also awarded the Best New Artist Grammy of 1976. She gained a new generation of fans when American Idol finalists Jasmine Trias and Kimberley Locke sang "Inseparable" on the show to extremely good reviews.
More hits followed, including "Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady), (1976), and "Someone That I Used To Love" (1980). Her biggest pop hit, 1977's "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned Gold single certifications.
[edit] Career detour and resurgence
Cole's career paused in the early 1980s as she dealt with her severe drug problem. By 1985, Cole was back in good health, and began a comeback.
Her first step was 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". The album garnered her three major hit singles: "Jump Start," "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B, as well as #21 UK [on re-release]), and a remake of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance, #5 UK). The album also included 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, another album, Good To Be Back, gave her another chart success: "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop, plus #2 UK).
[edit] Unforgettable...with Love
Cole may be best remembered for her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits. Though when she was younger, Cole was reluctant to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest, on this album she admited to being Nat King Cole's daughter and pledged her complete devotion to her father and his music. She said that she "felt" his presence while recording. She sang 20 songs from Nat King Cole's collection. Singles included "The Very Thought of You," "Mona Lisa," and "Route 66." The most fascinating song on the album was "Unforgettable." With a little help from technology, Cole performed the song as a duet with her father using her father's original recording.
Her decision to record the songs was a chart success; the album sold over 7 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.
[edit] Additional albums
Cole has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since, appearing in the pop singles charts occasionally (such as with "A Smile Like Yours" in 1997). Her albums sell well and she is considered one of the core artists of the smooth jazz format, garnering frequent airplay on smooth jazz radio stations with both her classic songs and her newer material.
In 1995 she performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), and issued on CD and video in 1996.
Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits. Then for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned again toward the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
In September 2006, she released Leavin', a cover album of tracks made popular by Shelby Lynne, Kate Bush, Sting, and Fiona Apple, and others. The album is a hybrid of rock, pop music, and R&B.
Natalie's latest album Still Unforgettable was released September 9, 2008. The first single and video is another virtual duet with her father, a cover of his 1951 hit "Walkin' My Baby Back Home".
[edit] Television and film
Cole has carved out a secondary career in acting. She has also appeared several times in live 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. In 1990, she (along with jazz vocalist Al Jarreau) sang the song "Mr. President" on HBO's Comic Relief special, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. After Johnny Mathis appeared on a special of Cole's in 1980, the two kept in contact, and in 1992, he invited Cole to be a part of his television special titled "A Tribute To Nat Cole" for BBC-TV in England. It had high viewer ratings and was successful. From that project, an album with the same name was released, and featured several medley and solo numbers.
Cole has made a number of dramatic appearances on television, including guest appearances on I'll Fly Away, Touched by an Angel, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2006, she made a memorable guest appearance on the popular ABC show Grey's Anatomy as a terminally ill patient. Her character visited Seattle Grace Hospital to have a fork removed from her neck that her husband had stabbed her with during a mishap; the couple had been having sex in public.[3]
Cole has also made several appearances in feature films, most recently in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely. She has appeared in several made-for-TV movies, most notably as the lead in Lily in Winter. Cole was featured on Macy Gray's album Big, singing "Finally Make Me Happy".
She also sang the national anthem with the Atlanta University Center Chorus at Super Bowl XXVIII
On December 2, 2006, Cole performed for the first time in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, as part of the annual Cayman Jazz Fest.[4]
On the February 5, 2007, episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Cole sang "I Say a Little Prayer" at a benefit dinner for Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson).
She can also be seen in the last scene of Nas' music video for "Can't Forget About You". The song uses a sample of her father's song "Unforgettable". Cole is sitting at a piano in a cabaret-style lounge mouthing her father's song with Nas standing beside her.
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