By Yenni Djahidin Grow
Broadcast: January 2, 2005
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Every week, we tell the story of someone important in the history of the United States. Today we will tell about Nat King Cole, one of America’s most popular singers.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
Nat King Cole was born in the southern city of Montgomery, Alabama, in Nineteen-Nineteen. His parents named him Nathaniel Adams Coles. His father was a Christian minister.
When Nathaniel was four years old, his parents moved the family north to Chicago, Illinois. Nat learned to play the piano when he was very young. His mother was the only piano teacher he ever had. He gave his first public performance when he was four. By the time he was twelve, Nat was playing piano at his father’s church.
VOICE TWO:
Nat played piano in New York City and in Los Angeles, California when he was a young man. In Nineteen Thirty-Seven, he formed a group that played jazz music. Oscar Moore played the guitar and Wesley Prince played the bass. The trio reportedly did not need a drummer because Nat’s piano playing kept the beat so well. They named the group, The King Cole Trio. At the same time, Nat also changed his name into Nat King Cole. The trio soon became very popular. Nat sang some songs, but mostly played the piano.
VOICE TWO(cont):
By the middle Nineteen-Forties, Nat King Cole was beginning to be known as a popular singer as well as a jazz piano player. He was one of the first musicians to record with new Capitol Records.
The first song he recorded for Capitol was “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” He wrote the song. The words were based on his father’s teachings. The song became one of the biggest hits of Nineteen-Forty-Three. It sold more than five-hundred-thousand copies.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Nat recorded hundreds of songs. Some of the most popular include “Sweet Lorraine,” “Nature Boy,” “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer,” “When I Fall in Love,” and “Mona Lisa.” In Nineteen-Fifty, the American film industry gave him an award for his recording of “Mona Lisa.” That song made him famous as a singer.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
By Nineteen-Fifty Six, Nat King Cole was known internationally. He signed an agreement to appear for a lot of money at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Nat often performed in places that only admitted white people. Black leaders criticized him. Nat said he attempted to take legal action against those places but often failed.
Nat earned more money and moved to California. He bought a house in an area where white people lived. At that time, many white Americans did not want to live near blacks. White home owners nearby protested the purchase of a house by a black family. Nat and his family refused to leave and lived in the house without problems.
VOICE ONE:
Nat was the first black man to have his own television show. His show began on N-B-C Television in Nineteen-Fifty-Six. N-B-C agreed to support The Nat King Cole Show for a while. It hoped American companies would pay to sell their products on the show. However, major companies were not willing to advertise on a show that had a black performer. They were concerned that white people in the southern part of the United States would not buy their products. Many Americans watched the show, but N-B-C halted production after a year.
Nat King Cole also acted in movies. The best known one is Saint Louis Blues. He acted the part of the jazz composer W.C. Handy. He also appeared in a film about himself called The Nat King Cole Story.
In the Nineteen-Fifties, he sang with some of the best known orchestras of the time. Here Nat King Cole sings “When I Fall in Love” with the Gordon Jenkins orchestra:
