- Title: USA: NATALIE COLE PROMOTES HER NEW ALBUM 'STARDUST'
- Date: 10th September 1996
- Summary: LOS ANGELES (REUTERS TELEVISION - ACCESS ALL) (SEPTEMBER 10, 1996) NATALIE COLE SAYING ITS STILL VERY MUCH A PART OF THIS BUSINESS (RACISM). NOT JUST RACISM BUT FEMINISM TOO IT JUST IS. IF WE TALK ABOUT IT PEOPLE WILL AT LEAST KNOW THAT WE KNOW ABOUT IT THAT WE ARE AWARE OF IT AND THEY WILL BE JUST A LITTLE MORE CAREFUL WHEN THEY TRY TO DO WHATEVER AND THINKING THAT MAYBE
- Embargoed: 25th September 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA69FJXI6CXJ0FOIZ9R5HBR7PNY
- Story Text: Singer Natalie Cole has released a new album and says she's working to overcome past traumas and deal with the future in a way that will make her a super star in her own right - not in the shadow of her famous late father.
Cole called her first album "Inseperable" and much of her recording career has been linked to the memory of her father - fifties singer Nat King Cole - but it wasn't until 1991 after recording an album incorporating her father's voice, that she gained universal fame.
The 46-year-old singer has striven over two decades to gain stardom in her own right with a string of award-winning hits, but this year, once again she has given into temptation and recorded another duet with her father for her new album "Stardust" which was released on September 24th.
Having won a battle against drug addiction and surviving other personal traumas including two marriage break-ups, Cole is at last coming to terms with both fame and her father.
Cole admits the first duet with her father's voice ("Unforgettable" in 1991) was very emotional but that the second time around - with the recording of "When I Fall in Love" for her new album - it was an enjoyable experience.
"I felt more at ease with the music, I was real familiar with the song. I'd never sung "Unforgettable" before in my life, but I'd sung "When I fall in Love" before many times," she told Reuters Television, "this time it was a different kind of experience, a different kind of emotion. Still sweet, still tender." Her 1991 album "Unforgettable With Love" went on to sell 11 million copies worldwide - but mixing her voice with her father's did present some technical challenges.
"They had to take his voice and place it in a certain spot so that I can sing exactly around it and they do that before I start singing so I had to get out of certain spots before he would go in because they couldn't really put his voice any place else", Cole said.
The new album is made up mainly of material from the post-war jazz era as well as a couple of songs sung in Spanish and in Portugese.
Nat King Cole was one of the first entertainers to cross the racial divide, overcoming much prejudice early in his career. When his daughter got in on the act at the age of eleven her father may have thought she wouldn't have to cope with the difficulties he had to...but according to Natalie this wasn't so.
"I think that one of the ways in which to tempt a black person who is not used to success or money is to tell them we'll give you a lot of money if you don't make a lot of noise and that is very real in our business even right now in 1996," she said.
Despite facing racial prejudice, Cole's career began to take off in the mid-seventies. Her debut album "Inseperable" won two Grammy awards and hit singles soon followed.
But moving in the freewheeling world of Hollywood society saw Cole hooked on heroin and cocaine. Some of her emotional problems had begun as a teenager when she watched her father die of cancer.
She was only able to kick the habit after visiting a rehabilitation clinic.
Now Natalie is regaining control of her life and she's working on a number of projects other than her singing career. Along with an autobiography she has a television film about her life in the pipeline. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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