Nat King Cole: something of an enigma

November 30^th – I think that, apart from being a bit of a rock-head, I’ve had a soft spot for what were known as crooners for as along if not longer than I’ve understood music.

Like us all, I suppose, most of my musical dictionary has been led by my parents;

Rock-head/Parents? What are you trying to say, Peter?

Well, yes. Both my folks were musically savvy enough during the 40’s and through the 50’s/60’s to be open to the new music and were also politically savvy enough to understand what was being done in their name by their elected representatives. They’d both been through WW2 (dad serving, mum in the munitions factory) and so had come into contact with the American GI’s (better late than never) who’d been billeted over here or who’d fought alongside dad on the various front-lines he was posted to. This meant that blues, swing and be-bop was within their grasp and so, when Bill Haley made it over here, albeit on film, they were also savvy enough to know that (within reason) if you ban the kids from something then that’s what they’ll end up doing…so they took us along to watch it; Penn Cinema, Wolverhampton 1956 or 7, I think.

However, amongst this catholic taste in music of theirs was included their first love, opera (and in particular the great singers of the day; Gigli, Schwarzkopf, Sutherland, Callas, Fischer-Dieskau, etc) and a smattering of the lounge crooners and jazz singers of the day (Sinatra, Crosby, Damone, Fitzgerald, Cantor, Bowlly etc) and one other…Nat King Cole. Mr. Cole who, on this day in 1954 began a six night run at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, was also a favourite of my late first father & mother-in-law’s. I found out from chats with them all the racist hoops of the day he’d been made to jump through in order to get where he was at the time I came into contact with him, probably about 1959 or 60. Throughout his early time as a popular singer he’d remained outside the mainstream anti-racist movement, choosing to keep his head down and just perform, choosing to use a certain level of amusement to combat overt racism when he encountered it, which was quite frequently. One of my favourite quotes about him was when, in 1948, he bought a house in the all-white area of Hancock Park L.A. In response to his temerity the KKK erected a burning cross on his front lawn and the head of the Neighbourhood Property Association told Mr. Cole that they didn’t want any undesirables moving in, to which Mr. Cole replied;

Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I’ll be the first to complain.

Nice line in FU there, Mr. Cole. Not always possible but if you can hold onto your temper for long enough humour is by far the best way to shut up aresholes.

It was after he was attacked whilst on stage in Alabama (Birmingham, how’d you guess you clever things you…his hometown too) by white supremacists that his situation and choices came under scrutiny and were narrowed. His downplaying of the incident was taken as an unwillingness to get involved in the struggle, to not use his considerable profile in order to change the situation (which, I guess, it was) and he was accused of being an Uncle Tom. After this pressure he did become involved in the call for change and his involvement increased, both in content and profile, but it did, nevertheless, take a vociferous challenge to his not my problem stance to get him to see where his loyalties were and where his weight should be placed.

Don’t know how you react to all that. What would we do in the same situation? There we are making a very good living, not getting bothered and bludgeoned by the ruling whites who had the whip-hand on just about everything one needed in order to make a living, just enjoying the things we’ve worked hard for. So, what do we do? I know the knee-jerk is to say;

I’d be up there straight away, fighting, calling for change, refusing to work for the man and ready to close up my career, my house, my livelihood, my family.

Would we? Would we jeopardise our career, our family…? When they start following your kids to school, stopping them on their way to the shops to get some sugar, knocking the shopping out of your wife’s hands in the supermarket car park, would we go round and have a word, have a word with the people who controlled the law, the judges, the politicians…and hated you for just being you? I know the popular maxim is to Mandela it;

I am prepared to die for this’

Are we? My guess is that viewpoint and its truism are only available to a few; but to the many…? One of the quotes that have stayed with me from when I first heard it in the 60’s and that I’ve tried to conjure up in moments of conflict in my life is;

I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

I’m just glad that, up to now, I’ve not been called upon to test out that belief in a life and death situation. I’d like to think I could Mandela it, but…

Something of a womaniser, Mr. Cole had, probably and IMHO, the best crooner voice of any of his contemporaries; maybe even better than Mr. Crosby; hm, now there’s a contentious statement I can cope with. I still rank his renditions of When I fall In Love, Unforgettable (I really disliked that fuckin’ Aero chocolate bastardisation of it) and I Wish You Love as probably the bench-mark of all lounge singers. It’s how he uses his voice in them to conjure up intimacy and worldliness that turn it for me.

He was of the belief that if he smoked really heavily it would preserve his voice’s worn-mahogany texture which it did, on record. In real life however it did for him and he died, at just 64, of lung cancer, even after having one lung removed.

As I write that I’m reminded of the skit by Bill Hicks about John Wayne. According to the sketch, when Mr. Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer and told he’d have to have a lung removed he replied;

Take ’em both, I don’t need ’em!

But then, John Wayne was a gun-toting white man and a national hero and Nat King Cole was just a black guy trying to earn a living so…