Althouse: "Nat King Cole would have turned 100 years old today."

March 17, 2019

"Nat King Cole would have turned 100 years old today."

John blogs today (when it's his birthday too). Lots of beautiful singing (and piano playing) in videos embedded at the link.

45 comments:

Inga...Allie Oop said...: Mona Lisa...my favorite Nat King Cole song. The words and melody both being unforgettable and yes that’s another favorite.

“Mona lisa, mona lisa, men have named you
you're so like the lady with the mystic smile
is it only 'cause you're lonely they have blamed you?
for that mona lisa strangeness in your smile?
Do you smile to tempt a lover, mona lisa?
or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
they just lie there and they die there
are you warm, are you real, mona lisa?
or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?”; 3/17/19, 10:14 PM
David Begley said...: L is for the way you look at me.; 3/17/19, 10:27 PM
JAORE said...: Chestnuts roasting....

Alabama guy. Whenever someone asks who I'd like to sing like, he's the guy.; 3/17/19, 10:32 PM
WK said...: Saw news that Dick Dale passed away today. He and Nat King Cole both had covers of the song “You Are My Sunshine”. Decidedly different interpretations of the song.; 3/17/19, 10:32 PM
JAORE said...: A good Alabamian.

If you ask me who I'd choose to sing like, he's the one.

Chestnuts roasting....; 3/17/19, 10:33 PM
Phil 314 said...: Is NKC the source of “Black Irish”?; 3/17/19, 10:33 PM
David Begley said...: Nat may have been the first Black musician I was aware of and liked.; 3/17/19, 10:37 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: We played the Nat King Cole Christmas stream nonstop during Christmas week.; 3/17/19, 10:37 PM
traditionalguy said...: Nobody didn't like Nat's voice and tempo. He was a Traditionalist Generation's all time favorite.; 3/17/19, 10:47 PM
David Begley said...: His last album was “L-O-V-E” and he recorded it after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Cole and Walt Disney were both smokers. I’m sure lots of people quit after their deaths.; 3/17/19, 10:54 PM
eddie willers said...: Nat may have been the first Black musician I was aware of and liked.

Should we accuse him of cultural appropriation?; 3/17/19, 10:59 PM
William said...: He has the best version of Stardust, and Stardust was recorded by everyone. There's a sense of wonder in his voice that precisely matches the melody and lyrics.; 3/17/19, 11:06 PM
stephen cooper said...: I would have thought he was older than that. It is hard to think of anyone associated with those old time Christmas carols having been less than 100 just last week. Maybe that lady who sang "Santa Baby" is (or wouldn't be) not a 100 yet, and I guess the lady who sang about the hippopotamus who was a vegetarian is still pretty young.

Nat King Cole overcame a rather unpleasant timbre - when you think about it, he sounded a lot like whiny Neil Young or Peter Lorre or Mel Torme - called the Velvet Fog and not really as a compliment, except by insufferable aficionados - but I once listened on Rob Bamberger's show to about 2 hours in a row of his singing with various jazz combos - and he was a real musician.; 3/17/19, 11:16 PM
stephen cooper said...: He overcame an unpleasant timbre - there was something , through no fault of his, off-puttingly whiny in his voice (for comparison, think of Neil Young, or Mel Torme, known as the Velvet Fog - not really a compliment) - but he always had good musicians backing him up.
Rob Bamberger - I guess this was on Nat King Cole's 90th birthday, or maybe 80th - once spent 2 or 3 hours of his Saturday night radio show playing his less well known sides, and if you like jazz from that period, he sang with some great instrumentalists.

I was surprised to hear he would only be 100. I guess he sounded older than he was when he was young.; 3/17/19, 11:31 PM
Al Nobile said...: His chops as a jazz pianist would have assured him fame if he chose to never sing a note. Had he lived long enough, perhaps we would have been graced with a King Cole Trio reunion tour....; 3/17/19, 11:39 PM
William said...: Stardust is like Hamlet's soliloquy. The way every actor wants to do Hamlet, every singer who takes a crack at the standards has to do Stardust. It's kind of a hackneyed song, but Cole makes it sound fresh and mysterious. . Among the standard bearers, Nat King Cole leads the parade, at least on this particular song.......There are other singers who own other songs, but that's because they got there first and staked out a claim. Doris Day with Que Sera. Johnny Cash with Folsom Prison. Bing Crosby with White Christmas. But Nat King Cole worked a panned out area and made the biggest strike,; 3/17/19, 11:43 PM
DeepRunner said...: Nat King Cole had some great songs...a perfect voice that died way too early.; 3/17/19, 11:53 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Love that dude.; 3/18/19, 12:01 AM
Two-eyed Jack said...: I particularly like "Pick Yourself Up" with George Shearing.; 3/18/19, 12:31 AM
readering said...: Hadn't realized he was born on St Paddy's though I'm Irish-Am and a big fan. Odd he's never recorded an Irish tune, Londonderry Air or whatever. (Would love to be shown up and proven wrong.); 3/18/19, 12:57 AM
gadfly said...: Nathaniel Adams Coles and Donald John Trump had little in common except both had a brother named Fred.

From there the comparison takes a different path. Nat Cole. In 1956, while at a live performance in Birmingham, was attacked by four suspected KKK members as the crooner began to perform "Little Girl." The white guys were given 180 days and fined for their hatred. Cole was injured slightly.

Donald Trump's father, also named Fred, was arrested as part of 1000 klansmen dressed in KKK garb at a rally in Jamaica, LI, NY in 1927. Fred Trump was jailed for brawling with police, so he obviously believed fervently that blacks and Jews are inferior. Donald Trump, according to workers at his casinos, cleared black employees from sight whenever important visitors showed up and he would not trust blacks to work jobs involving handling/counting money. Dad's teaching obviously shows.

Donald Trump grew up in a wealthy white enclave in Queens, and he first came to public attention in 1973, when the Justice Department sued his father’s real-estate company for refusing to rent apartments to people “because of race and color.” (Trump strongly denied the charges, which eventually led to a consent decree.); 3/18/19, 1:21 AM
readering said...: I read that Yesterday may have been inspired by a NKC composition of a decade earlier. Reminds me that, by dying so young in early '65, we missed out on hearing him do so many great Beatles covers and other ballads of the second half of the sixties, not to mention power ballads of the seventies.; 3/18/19, 1:41 AM
Quaestor said...: Is NKC the source of “Black Irish”?

I doubt that.

So who are the Black Irish? The term refers to people of demonstrable Irish descent whose physiognomy suggests Mediterranean or North African origin, for example black hair, brown or black eyes when red or auburn hair and blue eyes are more typical.

Two of my parents dearest friends were a married couple who before their wedding double dated with my parents before their wedding, and were jointly Maid of Honor and Best Man at their nuptials. They were Joan and Vern, and for much of my life they were like surrogate parents, giving all the love and encouragement I could wish for. Joan was one of the Black Irish. Her looks would lead one to place her among the Sicilians or the Greeks, but her pedigree showed not a single un-Irish name for as far back as it was known, ten generations, which is a long lineage for an American.

Theories about the Black Irish are usually mere bagatelles. One traces their origin to the 1588 Armada. After being driven by current, winds, and the English fleet northward past any possible rendezvous with the land forces of the Duke of Parma, the Armada's admiral, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, attempted to return to Spain by rounding the north of Scotland then west of Ireland. While navigating those treacherous storm-battered Irish shores several great fighting galleons foundered, depositing their wretched survivors on Erin's frigid beaches. Some found new homes and new wives as castaways, and thereby brought black hair and eyes to Ireland, or so says the tale. It is, of course, complete nonsense.

What isn't nonsense is the fact that the Gaels are relative newcomers to the Emerald Isle. Archaeological evidence of the Celts strongly suggests a slow but inexorable migration of a culturally unified people spreading from east to west across Europe beginning in the early Bronze Age on the western shores of the Black Sea around 2000 BCE, and reaching the Atlantic coast a thousand years later, bringing with them the implements and weapons of the Iron Age with which they overwhelmed and supplanted the Neolithic peoples already established there and in the British Isles. Those ancient and virtually unknown peoples confronted by the invading Celts left many megalithic monuments, some on the Continent, some in Britain (Stonehenge, being most famous), and some in Ireland, among them is the magnificent and mysterious passage grave known as Newgrange in County Meath.

(continued in my next comment); 3/18/19, 3:47 AM
Quaestor said...: (continued from my previous comment)

The people who built Newgrange and hundreds of other megaliths were long established in Ireland before the Gaels made it their home. The Gaels brought with them their Celtic speech, their powerful art, their skills in bronze and iron unmatched even by the Greeks, and a distinctive physiognomy which even the ancient writers found remarkable - a tall, fair people with blond or reddish hair and gray-green eyes. The Gaels themselves through their bardic tales say that natives they found already living in the land the Gaels sought to colonize were small, dark, and incomprehensible in their speech and ways. Folklorists have speculated that these prehistoric natives of Ireland were the inspiration of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Perhaps. But what has become evident over the last thirty years of ethnographic anthropology is that fact that in the histories the various migrations and conquests of ancient Europe there is no real indication of extermination of a people by an invader. Cultures and languages are replaced, but the genomes seem to endure. Perhaps the Black Irish are the modern manifestation of the genetic heritage of those long lost prehistoric inhabitants of neolithic Ireland.

There is another meaning of "Black Irish" which traces its origin to the sugar plantations of the 17th century Caribbean. In the religious turmoil which followed the Reformation, Ireland became a key battleground between the See of Rome and the Protestant kingdoms of England, Holland, and Scotland. After winning the Civil War and executing Charles I, Oliver Cromwell turned the troopers of his New Model Army on the Catholic rebels of Ireland. Most of those turbulent Irishmen were killed in battle, but some were captured. Those among the captives who were reasonably fit were transported as slaves to the West Indies. Taken away without their own women, these Irish prisoners mingled and interbred with the African slaves who had been working the cane fields for two or three generations before the Irish arrived in chains. Almost four hundred years later the genetic traces of those enslaved Irishmen have been diluted to near-extinction, but their distinctive intonation of the English tongue still haunts the speech of those islands.; 3/18/19, 3:51 AM
FleetUSA said...: "Unforgettable"; 3/18/19, 5:14 AM
stlcdr said...: Unfortunately, these ‘so and so would be one hundred and something’ starts to make you realize that oneself isn’t a spring chicken, anymore.; 3/18/19, 5:27 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Great video of young Billy Preston... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahjOLYiLs4; 3/18/19, 5:53 AM
Bob R said...: Cool clip of Cole with a 10-year-old Billy Preston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxSHBIXfFPE; 3/18/19, 6:19 AM
Saint Croix said...: Amazing voice. He sings one of my favorite Christmas songs, I Saw Three Ships.

I actually like Sting's version more. He's doing an Irish brogue that really works.

Interesting to me that I think Nat King Cole's version is flawless, and yet it's not as interesting as Sting's off-the-wall version. Not sure why that is. The music makes a difference, of course. But I was thinking maybe an unusual voice is more interesting than a perfect one. Nat King Cole is so damn good, he's a little boring. Is that possible?; 3/18/19, 6:52 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Nat King Cole
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he...; 3/18/19, 6:57 AM
Christy said...: Quaestor, there is no real indication of extermination of a people by an invader. The recent paper in Science suggests the IndoEuropeans came close in Spain, wiping out the indigenous Y completely. I'm having a hard time believing it happened non-violently, as claimed.; 3/18/19, 7:02 AM
whitney said...: Black Irish just means you have dark hair and eyes. Daniel Webster was called black Dan but same reason, dark hair and eyes. It doesn't have anything to do with race but it is confusing for people that read it now; 3/18/19, 7:03 AM
Phil 314 said...: I’m assuming given his age and home state he was a regular user of the Green Book?; 3/18/19, 7:06 AM
Eleanor said...: Thank you, Quaestor.

My mom's family has a strong line of ancestors from Ireland, and there's not a lock of auburn hair or a blue eye among the lot that I've known in my lifetime. I was often asked, "Your mom's Italian, right?" I look like my dad's family, from England and Scotland, and while I have my mom's brown eyes genetics and dominant genes and all that, I have (or had) the auburn hair.

In keeping with Ann's new policy, I am also partial to Nat King Cole's rendition of a lot of songs. I had a neighbor who named his son Nathan Cole after Nat and Cole Porter. While I enjoy seeing what everybody's favorite NKC song and wish Ann's son a Happy Birthday, I hope Ann's new policy will let comments like Quaestor's through because they've been the most interesting to me on this blog post.; 3/18/19, 7:19 AM
etbass said...: The strolling minstrel of Cat Ballou was one of my favorites of Nat King Cole. He made thar movie memorable.; 3/18/19, 7:29 AM
wild chicken said...: Nat King Cole had a tv show for a year or two but could not *garner* ANY sponsors. They were that afraid of racist blowback.

But at least we have some goid videos now.; 3/18/19, 7:45 AM
Marc in Eugene said...: "I'm having a hard time believing it happened non-violently, as claimed."

That bald assertion that the disappearing of the indigenous males in the Iberian Peninsula happened 'without violence', without any explanation or precision, must have caught the eyes of quite a few readers, yes. But I haven't read any more about the matter, as I had intended to do, tsk.; 3/18/19, 8:01 AM
Wince said...: Nat King Cole would have turned 100 years old today.

That would make him Old King Cole.

And a merry old soul was he.; 3/18/19, 8:14 AM
Dave Begley said...: Sirius 71 has a special tribute to him. All Nat. Limited time.; 3/18/19, 8:34 AM
tcrosse said...: Nobody does a cooler Route 66.; 3/18/19, 8:59 AM
Hagar said...: So, Quaestor, what about the Norwegians?
Almost all of the major Irish coastal towns were founded by Norse immigrants and the west coast of Norway has communities that still were predominantly red-haired and blue-eyed well into the 20th century.; 3/18/19, 8:59 AM
Jeff said...: Maybe a bit off topic, but his daughter's cover of Ticket to Ride is awesome.; 3/18/19, 10:21 AM
Pianoman said...: I challenge you married guys out there to listen to this, and not mist up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6mz5V9WECc; 3/18/19, 11:55 AM
readering said...: Phil: The Green Book covered the entire country. Started in '30s with NYC by a guy named Green. A criticism of the recent film is that it seemed like they only started using the Green Book when crossing Mason-Dixon line.; 3/18/19, 4:36 PM
truth speaker said...: I have the 12 disc set from Capitol of his trio. Fantastic jazz piano playing from before he became a MOR crooner(I like that stuff, too).; 3/19/19, 12:46 AM