News & Updates — Nat King Cole

Happy birthday to another one they sometimes call The Fifth Beatle, Billy Preston. The future top session man grew up in Los Angeles a piano prodigy. At 10 he was performing with Mahalia Jackson and was on TV at 11 dueting with Nat King Cole. He played a young WC Handy in the biopic St Louis Blues in '58. He joined Little Richard's group in '62 as the band organist, meeting the Beatles in Germany. In '63 he played on Sam Cooke's absolute classic Night Beat. The same year Cooke produced Preston's first album, 16 Year Old Soul. He joined Ray...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...

Some may view Nat King Cole as an apolitical jazz-gone-pop sell-out "Uncle Tom" (as he has been called by some radicals) who moved into the upper-crust white neighborhood and made a bunch of Christmas dreck and soft music. Or you could view him as a major black superstar who had his hand in a number of respectable endeavors with much success. Regardless, it is hard to deny his sweet voice and the immense popularity he found. A talented pianist, he found that audiences started preferring his vocal numbers more than the instrumentals so he obliged with his smooth baritone. A...