Home · Artists · Nat King Cole

🇺🇸 United States · 1934–1965

Nat King Cole

The sound of Nat King Cole emerges from a piano that breathes jazz but dresses itself in balladry. His touch on the keys was clean, precise, with that swing blend that only Chicago musicians in the 1930s knew how to carry: neither too fast nor too slow, like a stroll through Bronzeville at nightfall. Before becoming the voice everyone remembers, he was a pianist leading a trio where the guitar set the rhythm and the bass walked steadily. In Los Angeles, those nightclubs were his school. There, amid smoke and applause, he learned that music could be intimate without losing strength, and that a melody could be popular without ceasing to be profound.

In 1944, when he released Straighten Up and Fly Right, no one expected a song based on a sermon by his father—a folk tale about a wasp and an ox—to become a massive hit. The track wasn’t rock, but its infectious energy proved the public was ready for something new. Later, in 1950, he took the definitive leap: he stopped being "the pianist of the trio" to become Nat King Cole, the voice that drew crowds. With Mona Lisa (1950) and Unforgettable (1951), he didn’t just dominate the charts—he redefined what a ballad could be: elegant, accessible, and, above all, impossible to forget.

easy listening Jazz Pop R&B swing 1910s

3 Albums

58 Songs

3,1M Listeners/mo

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Most played on DoReSol

Essential songs

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Cachito

Cole español · 1958

2:50 02

María Elena

Cole español · 1958

2:42 03

Quizás, quizás, quizás (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps)

Cole español · 1958

2:46 04

Las mañanitas (with Mariachis)

Cole español · 1958

2:57 05

Acércate más (Come Closer To Me)

Cole español · 1958

2:49 06

El bodeguero (Grocer's Cha-Cha)

Cole español · 1958

2:25 07

Arrivederci Roma (Goodbye to Rome)

Cole español · 1958

2:46 08

Noche de ronda

Cole español · 1958

2:34 09

Tú, mi delirio

Cole español · 1958

2:36 10

Te quiero, dijiste (Magic Is the Moonlight)

Cole español · 1958

2:41

3 album|s · 1958 — 1962

Full discography

1962 ★ Essential

More Cole Español

12 song|s · easy listening

1961 ★ Essential

The Nat King Cole Story

35 song|s · easy listening

1958 ★ Essential

Cole español

11 song|s · easy listening

Details, awards, members and more

More about Nat King Cole

Biography

But Cole didn’t stay on the surface. In 1956, when many already considered him a lost jazz musician, he recorded After Midnight, an album where the piano once again took center stage. That same year, his television program The Nat King Cole Show broke barriers: it was the first national space hosted by an African American, and though it lasted briefly, it made clear the industry could—and should—change. Years later, in 1958, a trip to Havana inspired him to record Cole Espanol, an entire album in Spanish and Portuguese that conquered from Miami to Buenos Aires. It wasn’t a whim: it was proof that music knows no borders when played with authenticity.

His final major work, L.O.V.E (1964), arrived as rock already dominated the airwaves and young voices drew crowds. Yet Cole proved a song like Ramblin’ Rose could sound fresh without losing its essence. He died in 1965, but his legacy lives on: in 1990 he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2020 he was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. Today, when you hear The Christmas Song in December, it’s easy to forget it took 62 years to reach the Billboard top 10—but there it stands, a reminder that great voices never fade.

Details

Born: 17 Mar 1919
Country: 🇺🇸 United States
Genre: easy listening

Awards and honors

Grammy Lifetime Achievement

Record labels

Capitol

Links

Wikipedia

The full catalog on DoReSol

All songs

Adelita (with Mariachis)

Cole español · 1958

2:10 12

Straighten Up and Fly Right