![]() ![]() Her demo tapes led to a contract with Capitol, resulting in the release of Cole's debut album, Inseparable, which included songs that reminded listeners of Aretha Franklin. With the assistance of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy, a songwriting and producing duo, she recorded some songs in a studio in Chicago that was owned by Curtis Mayfield. Clubs initially welcomed her because she was Nat King Cole's daughter, only to be disappointed when she began singing cover versions of R&B and rock songs. After graduation in 1972 she began singing at small clubs with her band, Black Magic. Natalie and Carole Cole at NBC studios, 1975Ĭole grew up listening to a variety of music that included Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. She later transferred back to the University of Massachusetts, where she majored in Child Psychology and minored in German, graduating in 1972. She transferred briefly to University of Southern California where she pledged the Upsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. ![]() She enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Soon afterwards she began having a difficult relationship with her mother. Her paternal uncle Freddy Cole was a singer and pianist with numerous albums and awards.Ĭole enrolled in Northfield School for Girls, an elite New England preparatory school (since 1971 known as Northfield Mount Hermon School after merging with another school) before her father died of lung cancer in February 1965. Through her mother, Cole was a grandniece of educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown. At the age of 6, Natalie sang on her father's Christmas album The Magic of Christmas and later started performing at age 11.Ĭole grew up with an older adopted sister, Carole "Cookie" Cole (1944–2009) (her mother Maria's younger sister's daughter), adopted brother Nat "Kelly" Cole (1959–1995), and younger twin sisters Timolin and Casey (born 1961). Regarding her childhood, Cole referred to her family as "the black Kennedys" and was exposed to many great singers of jazz, soul and blues. Natalie Cole was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, to American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Hawkins Ellington, and raised in the affluent Hancock Park district of Los Angeles.
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