50 MILLION RECORDS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30680, 20 February 1965, Page 5

50 MILLION RECORDS

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LOS ANGELES. \ NAT KING COLE memorial will be erected in the multi-million-dollar Los Angeles Music Centre which he helped to found. The board of supervisors approved the memorial in a motion describing Cole as an “outstanding singer and humanitarian.” Cole, whose voice sold more than 50 million records, was to have sung at a concert at the centre on December 11,

The singer who died this week aged 45 owed his fabulous singing career to a drunk at a Hollywood nightclub.

It was in 1937, soon after organising the King Cole Swingsters, that he was coerced into singing his first song in public. With Cole at the piano, Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass—and no vocalist—the popular swing group was playing at the SWanee Inn when a drunk staggered up to the piano. “Sing ‘Sweet Lorraine’,” he demanded. “We don’t sing,” Cole quietly replied. “Sing,” the man commanded. At that point the club’s manager ran up and asked Cole as a favour to sing because the man was a big spender. Cole sang—and people soon forgot his piano playing.

At another night-club, Cole was first crowned “king.” The young pianist was playing for five dollars a night when a man wobbled to his piano, placed a paper hat on his head, and then cried: “Look—King Cole.” The name stuck. Cole was born as Nat Coles on March 17, 1919, in Alabama, but he was raised in Chicago. His father was a Baptist preacher.

Cole took after his music-ally-inclined mother and by the age of four he was picking out “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” on the church piano. He played the organ for church services as he grew older. At 18, he went to California to strike out for himself.

He dropped the last “s” from his name and played the piano at small night-clubs for several months until he joined Moore and Prince. The King Cole Swingsters quickly became popular. Cole’s new-found singing gave the group a big name in jazz circles of the day.

Cole made his first recording in 1943, singing “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” It made him a national institution.

Critics sought a description for his soft-toned voice, hitting on husky, hoarse, sugar-cured and pussy-willow textured, among others. But there was no doubt that whatever it was, the public loved it and his income soared to more than 500,000 dollars a year. The Negro singer, although never a militant in the civil rights movement, had his share of racial troubles. In 1948, Cole and his new bride, singer Maria Ellington —no relation to band leader Duke Ellington—bought a 65,000-dollar home in the exclusive Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. “We don’t want undesirable people coming here,” a lawyer for property owners protesting against Cole said. “Neither do I,” Cole replied, “and if I see anybody undesirable coming into this neighbourhood, I’ll be the first to complain.” Cole stayed until 1951 when the house was seized by Fed-

eral authorities for a 150,000dollar back-tax assessment.

In 1956, a singing appearance by Cole in a Birmingham. Alabama, theatre hit the headlines when six white men attacked him on the stage before an audience of 4000. He was knocked down but was not seriously injured. He later cancelled an appearance in Atlanta, claiming he would not sing at the time in the racially-troubled south for “a million dollars.”

Although his feelings were strong on the matter, he claimed that his most important work was as an entertainer.

He insisted that it was not enough for Negro performers to be accepted or even idolised.

“We’re no threat to anybody. When people see us, they’re relaxed, unworried. "If Harry Belafonte or Sammy Davis walk in some place, then they will be recognised and concessions may be made. That’s no good. “Better a brilliant doctor or lawyer or educator be recognised as a worth-while man—then we’ll be doing something,” he said.