Nat King Cole [antikvár]

Introduction Nat "King" Cole was only forty-five when he died in 1965, but already he was an institution in the music world. His legendary voice is as familiar today as it was then, yet the passage of twenty years has dimmed the memory of the man. For a person listening to that voice, it is hard to realize that Cole's effortless delivery and words of love masked a profound tension and unhappiness born of frustrations in abundance, over some of which he had control, over many of which he had none. Twenty years have relegated to ancient history the extreme paradox of being a black star in a racist society, but Nat King Cole lived that paradox. His records sold millions of copies, and women swooned when he sang, but he couldn't be sure of getting a room in a good hotel. They loved him in Vegas, on the stage, but they didn't like his musicians gambling in the casinos or his daughters eating in the dining room. When he performed in the South, he usually had to play before segregated audiences, and when he bowed to Southern customs the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called him an Uncle Tom. At the same time, fear of Southern opinion kept Madison Avenue advertisers from sponsoring a Nat King Cole television show. At heart he was a musician, with the potential to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of this century. But his sense of responsibility to his wife and children, as well as his own need for acceptance by a wide audience, caused him to rise from his piano bench to sing, leaving behind a comparatively straightforward but not particularly lucrative career as a jazz instrumentalist for a more commercial and anxiety-provoking life as a pop vocalist. Ironically, his success as a vocalist overshadowed his talent as a pianist to such an extent that even in his own lifetime most people 9