NATALIE COLE:
One Triumphant Lady
To begin, what do you have in store for the audiences during your three upcoming nights with the symphony at the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall? Well…with the symphony you can always pull out a few gems. We want to take
advantage of that lovely symphony for sure. I think it will be really, really nice. There will be some nice ballads that we will do with the symphony that we normally wouldn’t do with a smaller configuration.
You have such an amazing career. I’d like to share a bit of personal history. My dad’s favorite singer of all time was your father, Nat King Cole. I grew up listening to Nat King Cole Sings My Fair Lady and many more of your dad’s recordings. Yeah! (laughter) That was one of my favorites. That was one of my favorite shows. My parents took me to see it on Broadway and to see the movie.
Marvelous. Such a fun album. Yeah…those were the days where you could actually go out and see some really
wonderful plays.
No doubt. I was born in 1961, so in about 1978 I was in 10th grade and vividly remember your hit song, “This Will Be…An Everlasting Love.” That was perfect for the 1970s. Then, being with my first partner and playing Unforgettable. That was one of our favorites to listen to. Oh yeah…wow.
You span a lot of very special musical memories. That’s great. That makes me feel really, really good. You just don’t know what people are going to respond to and you never know what touches people. You just hope that you get it right, you know?
Bam…you did! (laughter)
Knock on wood. I’m so happy to be able to speak with you as you just went through a major health scare with your kidney problems. I’m really happy for you. Yeah…it’s been kind of a long journey but I was very fortunate and very blessed
to get a kidney. It was a perfect match. It’s really been amazing. I’ve learned so much about kidney failure and kidney disease. Since then, ironically, I’ve talked to several people who are in the early stages of kidney disease. It’s very disturbing. It’s out there like crazy. It’s one of the top diseases that plagues us in our time. There’s a lot of work to be done. Probably, if this had never happened to me…I
would be like most people, walking around not even paying attention. Also, I prob- ably would not have been involved with a really cool foundation that I got involved with about two years ago.
What’s the name of the foundation? It’s called UKRO (University Kidney Research Organization). It focuses more on
research and raising money for kidney research. My nephrologist, who is a wonder- ful doctor at Cedar Sinai, has told me that there is still not a lot known about the kidney and what it does—how it does go into failure and that it happens to people who have been absolutely fine. In fact, the gentleman who founded the organiza- tion, Ken Kleinberg…he was on dialysis for five years. We don’t even know why his kidney failed. He got lucky and was able to get a kidney transplant. These are the kinds of things that are very scary.
With your new book called Love Brought Me Back, was it the whole crisis with the kidney that
caused you to write this book? Absolutely. Absolutely. It was a most emotional time. It’s really difficult to imag-
ine what it would have been like to have to go through this myself, with no help or support. I had tremendous support. At the same time that I had the transplant, I lost my sister on the same day. It was just such a powerful, extraordinary time for all of us. There are 20-some members of my family and we all went through this together. I couldn’t imagine how I’d have gotten through without it…that’s why I called it Love Brought Me Back. Their support of me, their love for me, their absolute consistency of being there for me was really, really amazing.
That’s beautiful. It totally could have been a different road. That’s the importance of family…most definitely. I just finished Tina Sinatra’s book called My Father’s Daughter. She wrote of never seeing a black person before when she was a child and it scared her. She was meeting your dad, Nat King Cole, for the first time. (much laughter). Are you serious? That is funny.
There is a quote from you where you referred to your family as the “Black Kennedys.” Is that correct? Yeah. That’s correct. Absolutely correct, it was a very unique position during that
time. There were not a lot of families who had the status and the elegance…even where we lived and the schools that my sister and I were attending. As well as the places that my father was invited to, they were very, very high-society places. It’s funny that you should mention that thing about Sinatra. I saw more white folks than black people when I was growing up. So, if she said, she never saw any black people until my father…that’s too funny.
That period of entertainers with such magnificent talent and their style…everything about it is class-A. It really is and it’s so memorable. It’s not something that can be duplicated. It really isn’t. I don’t think. At least, it hasn’t been yet.
FEBRUARY 2011 | RAGE monthly 35
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