Natalie Cole, Nat King Cole’s daughter, was born in Los Angeles in 1950. She made her first commercial recordings in 1975 in Chicago at Curtom Studios, Paragon Studios and Universal Recording Studios, working with the songwriting/production duo of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancey, whom Cole married. The studio band included many of the well-known Chicago session men, including Quinton Joseph, and Richard Evans contributed to the arrangements. The demo tapes from the sessions were presented to Capitol Records on the West Coast, who promptly signed her to the label and released Cole’s first album “Inseparable”.
The album rose to number one on the Billboard R&B Albums Chart and number eighteen on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, achieving gold certification from the RIAA. Two singles were taken from the album for release in 1975, both hitting number one on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. “This Will Be” also peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, while the follow-up “Inseparable” reached number thirty-two on the same chart. The impact of Cole’s Chicago recordings was marked in 1976 by the award of a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “This Will Be” (beating Aretha Franklin!) and a second Grammy for Best New Artist.
Natalie Cole 2007
Photo: dbking (Wikimedia Commons) https://flickr.com/photos/65193799@N00/1155704120
This phenomenal start was maintained with the release in 1976 of the album “Natalie”, which charted at number three (R&B) and number thirteen (Billboard 200) and also achieved gold certification. As before, Capitol released two singles from the album, “Sophisticated Lady (She’s A Different Lady)” and “Mr. Melody”, which reached number one and number ten respectively on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and also entered the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. The first of these also attracted Cole’s second Grammy award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
The album was cut entirely at Curtom Studios, with Jackson and Yancy producing and arranging, with input from Gene Barge and Richard Evans on several tracks. The session band included Quinton Joseph on drums once more, with Joseph Scott on bass, Cash McCall on guitar, Tennyson Stephens sharing keyboard duties with Yancy, and Master Henry Gibson joining Jackson on percussion. Two of the songs on the album were written by Natalie Cole, the big hit “Sophisticated Lady” and “Not Like Mine”.
The following year saw the release of her third studio album on Capitol. Could she keep up the momentum? No, she could do even better, as she watched the album “Unpredictable” achieve platinum status, hitting number one on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and number eight on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. The best track “I’ve Got Love On My Mind” was released as a single, sailing to number one on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and number five on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, picking up another gold disc.
For this album the team had switched to PS Studios in Chicago. Yancy and Jackson co-wrote seven of the album’s ten tracks, while two of the other three were the work of Natalie Cole, arranged by Richard Evans. The studio band was as strong as ever, uniting Phil Upchurch and Criss Johnson on guitars, with Larry Ball on bass, Donnell Hagan on drums, Yancy and Stephens on keyboards once more, Terry Fryer on synthesizer and Derf Reklaw (Fred Walker) on percussion.
The combined sales for the three albums totalled around fifteen million dollars. The shooting star from the West burst on the Chicago scene in 1975, became a huge success by 1977, and then Natalie Cole went back to Los Angeles to record her fourth album “Thankful”. Gene Barge and Richard Evans did some of the arrangements and Gene Barge added a sax solo to “Just Can’t Stay Away”, but the strong Chicago link was broken.
