On this day in 1950, Natalie Cole was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of legendary vocalist and pianist Nat King Cole.
Cole was raised in the Hancock Park neighborhood and grew up surrounded by music, singing on one of her father’s Christmas albums before she was a teenager. After earning a degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she began performing in clubs, initially resisting expectations that she would simply replicate her father’s sound. That independence paid off in 1975 with her debut album Inseparable, driven by the hit “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).” The album made her a star and earned her the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, making her the first African American and first R&B artist to win the honor.
Through the late 1970s, Cole became one of the most successful R&B artists in the industry, scoring major hits with “Sophisticated Lady,” “I’ve Got Love on My Mind” and “Our Love.” She became the first female artist to release two platinum albums in the same year and was a consistent presence on radio, television and concert stages.
After personal struggles and a career slowdown in the early 1980s, Cole staged a comeback with the pop-oriented album Everlasting in 1987. Her most celebrated work came in the 1990s, when she embraced the Great American Songbook. Unforgettable… with Love, released in 1991, paired her interpretations with her father’s legacy and became her biggest commercial success. The album won multiple Grammys, including Album of the Year, making Cole the first African American woman to receive that award.
Over her career, Cole won nine Grammy Awards, sold more than 30 million records worldwide and expanded into acting, television hosting and film.
She died Dec. 31, 2015, at 65. Today marks the birth of an artist who moved fluidly between R&B, pop while establishing a legacy entirely her own.
