Natalie Cole's blog
Natalie Cole
With a string of hit singles, gold and platinum albums, and three Grammy Awards already to her name, Natalie Cole was an established R&B star when she came to Elektra in 1991. Still, the daughter of the great jazz singer/pianist Nat “King” Cole had yet to achieve the superstar status her talent and family pedigree deserved. Enter Elektra Entertainment Chairman/CEO Bob Krasnow and his crack Elektra A&R and marketing teams, who enlisted heavyweight producers and arrangers like Tommy LiPuma, David Foster, and Michel Legrand to create Cole’s breakthrough collection, Unforgettable…With Love.
The hugely successful album featured Cole’s vocal arrangements of 22 songs from her legendary father’s catalog, with piano accompaniment by her uncle Ike Cole. Among the Nat “King” Cole hits included were “The Very Thought of You,” “Mona Lisa,” and the title song, performed, with a little help from technology, as a duet with her father, using his original recording. Unforgettable…With Love reached #1 on the Billboard 200 and earned seven-times platinum certification from the RIAA. What’s more, the album received the 1992 Grammy Award for “Album of the Year,” with “Unforgettable” also honored as “Record of the Year” and “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.”
1993 saw the release of the gold-certified Take A look, which earned Cole a “Best Jazz Vocal Performance” Grammy. Three years later, another collection of pop standards, entitled Stardust, was released. The RIAA platinum-certified album included guest appearances from jazz icons like Wynton Marsalis and John Pizzarelli, as well as a new “duet” with her dad on the Grammy Award-winning “When I Fall In Love.” 1999’s Snowfall On The Sahara – featuring songs by modern pop tunesmiths like Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, and Judy Collins – would be Cole’s penultimate Elektra release, followed only by The Magic of Christmas, a holiday-themed collection with accompaniment from the London Symphony Orchestra.
Since leaving Elektra, Cole has released a number of acclaimed albums spanning jazz, pop, and contemporary urban soul. In 2009, she released Still Unforgettable, with songs made famous by stars like Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Lena Horne. Highlighted by another virtual “duet” with her father on “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” the album received the Grammy for “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.”
