E-mail a friendNatalie Cole
airdate November 21, 2008
Born into musical royalty—the daughter of Nat "King" Cole—Natalie Cole was exposed to the greats at an early age. Over her three-decade career, she's sold more than 30 million albums and won eight Grammys. She was the first Black singer to win The Recording Academy's "Best New Artist" award. Cole segued into acting in the '90s and has made several appearances in films and on TV, including Grey's Anatomy. She also exec-produced a biopic of her life. Her new release, "Still Unforgettable," is her 21st studio album.
Singer-songwriter discusses her recent health challenges and tells how she has been able to get through. (4:39)
Full interview. (21:52)
Natalie Cole
Tavis: Always pleased to have Natalie Cole on this program. The eight-time Grammy-winning singer is back with her 21st studio album this fall called "Still Unforgettable" -
Natalie Cole: - but who's counting (laughter)?
Tavis: Yeah (laughter). The disk features 14 classic American pop standards including one originally recorded by her late great father. From "Still Unforgettable," here is some of the video for "Walking My Baby Back Home."
[Showing Clip]
Tavis: I was in a conversation the other day about diction and enunciation and your father is at the top of that list.
Cole: Absolutely, absolutely. And you know what? I remember my mom talking about that. She said the same thing about dad and, when I decided to, you know, actually follow this as a career, that's one of the things that she said. You got to make sure they can understand you.
Tavis: Well, we do. I was saying to you while that clip was running that just because he is your father and he has a great voice and you are the daughter and you have a great voice doesn't necessarily mean that your voices have to mesh well together. What is it about these voices that work so well together on these classical songs?
Cole: They don't always. If you've heard some duets or people singing together, it's not always a great blend. I think we just got blessed. I think, you know, we got lucky that I have that similar tone in my voice that dad did, but it doesn't happen, you're right.
Tavis: You were 16 when your dad passed?
Cole: 15.
Tavis: 15.
Cole: I'd just turned 15, yeah.
Tavis: Just turned 15. What do you think you miss most about him being gone at 15 as opposed to you getting a lifetime with him? You ever think about that? What you missed?
Cole: I do, I do. It's very bittersweet, you know. I just say the time. It's the time because, you know, when dad was around, it was just special. It was different because he wasn't around that much, so I spent as much time and he spent as much time with us as he possibly could, so that's what I miss. I wish that when I was in my 40s, he would still be there.
Tavis: You in your 40s yet?
Cole: Child, twice over (laughter).
Tavis: (Laughter) It's been so public and I'm grateful that you're on the program to talk about this among other things. You were talking about time and it made me think that now may be the best time to raise this issue before we move on.
The health challenge that you're facing has been talked about everywhere. Everybody knows it now. You had to cancel the tour for the CD to deal with the health challenge. Tell me what you want to tell me about it. What I really want to get to is whether or not, given the challenge that you're having now, you've started to think more about time, about mortality.
Cole: In a way, yes. I mean, I must say that when this particular episode happened - by the way, the hepatitis was the first thing that I was diagnosed with earlier this year. I was on chemo for about four months. I'm happy to say that I'm no longer on chemo and my liver is pretty healthy, which I'm -
Tavis: - that's a beautiful thing.
Cole: Yeah, it really is.
Tavis: It's a blessing.
Cole: But then we were hit with the kidney thing in the midst of the chemotherapy. That actually worries me more, or at least worried me because, when that episode occurred, I was in New York. I really had a bad breathing issue. I could not breathe.
Tavis: Kind of hard to sing if you can't breathe.
Cole: Well, you know what's interesting, though? I had done "The View" and a couple of shows that week doing PR for the record. I sang fine, but when I would talk, gasp, gasp, gasp.
Tavis: That is weird, isn't it?
Cole: Isn't it weird?
Tavis: Yeah.
Cole: Yeah, it was very strange. But I think I didn't realize how close I came to dying until I got to the hospital. They put me on dialysis within like three or four days because the function of my kidney was just about gone. I didn't realize it. I didn't really understand. I just kept saying, "I need to breathe, I need to breathe." I wasn't thinking about, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die."
Tavis: How's the kidney now?
Cole: Uh -
Tavis: Still?
Cole: Yeah. It's not where we'd like it to be. But, you know, I feel really good and obviously the dialysis is the reason. But, you know, we're gonna have to see. Maybe a transplant.
Tavis: Kidney transplants, you know, happen every day. There are people on lists, as we all know.
Cole: Yes, you say that now (laughter).
Tavis: There are people on lists right now, as you well know, who are waiting for, looking for, hoping for a kidney transplant. That's a pretty serious issue.
Cole: It's a very serious issue. I must say that the up side of this is how many organizations and how many individuals have actually come forward offering either to find a match or to give me their kidney. I mean, it just almost makes me start crying, thinking that people would care that much. So I don't think I'm gonna have a problem finding a kidney (laughter).
Tavis: That's a beautiful thing there.
Cole: It really is. But my son has come forward and offered, my sister, and I think that we're in pretty good shape.
Tavis: Did you get angry when you learned that you were having these challenges? There's two parts to that question. One, did you get angry and, number two, I'm curious, if you did, what you got angry about. About the fact that you might have brought some of this on yourself? Mad about the fact that you couldn't get out and promote the CD the way you wanted? I mean, did you get angry at all?
Cole: All of those (laughter).
Tavis: All of those (laughter). A little bit of all of that.
Cole: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was mad at God, I was mad at me.
Tavis: What were you mad at God about?
Cole: Why me? How could you let this happen?
Tavis: Right, and what were you mad at Natalie about?
Cole: How could you let this happen? How come you didn't know? Someone asked me in an interview, "You know, do you have any regrets when you were doing the drugs back in the day?" I said, "Gee, I was having fun back in the day." No, I didn't have any regrets because I was having a good time.
Obviously, had I known then what I know now, maybe, maybe, I would have done it differently. I can't say for sure because when you're in the moment, you're just in the moment. You're having a good time. You know, that kind of thing. So it's very interesting. Yeah, I was mad at me and then it didn't last very long, Tavis. It really didn't. I was okay with it. I really was.
Tavis: Maybe everybody doesn't get it the same way I just took it, but I appreciate the honest assessment about the fact that when you were in the moment, you were in the moment, and at that time you were enjoying what you were doing.
Cole: Absolutely.
Tavis: As you look back on it, while you don't regret that necessarily, do you know what led you in that direction? What led you to experiment the way you did?
Cole: Yeah, I was a very insecure young woman as I was growing up.
Tavis: How could you be insecure? You got a great voice, your daddy's Nat King Cole.
Cole: But I didn't know about the voice thing and I'd lost my father by then, okay? So I didn't get into drugs until after he passed.
Tavis: All right.
Cole: I think that was a big hole in my life and I continued to find ways to fill it, whether it was with, you know, relationships or drugs. I think that almost anyone that gets involved in drugs or pills or those kinds of things, there's a big hole. There's an insecurity there that we just try to fill.
Tavis: I want to move on past this. Before I do, though, I want to ask this as an exit question for that part of our conversation, which is honestly whether or not you get tired of having to address those issues. By those issues, I mean do you ever get tired of having to address your father's legacy? Do you ever get tired of people like me asking you to address the drug usage back in the day? Do you get tired of those questions?
Cole: No, because I did -
Tavis: - you can tell me. I'm done asking you anyway for this conversation. So you can tell me if you do (laughter).
Cole: Well, good (laughter).
Tavis: Do you get tired of it?
Cole: No, I don't think I really do because I've learned so much from that and I know now that I can help so many other people. When they get an honest look at a star who has been through trials and tribulations, it gives them a sense of, "Wow, they're not that different and yet they still have this gift, but they really are trying to use it to the best of their ability."
I think that, at the end of the day, you know, despite what you go through, it really does shape who you are. Without these problems that I had, these different issues in my life, I wouldn't be the woman that I am today, you know. I know that I'm a strong woman, I'm a very brave, courageous type of person, I'm a good friend. All of those things are because of what I've been through and what I've learned. You know, I think that I can always help someone when I talk about it.
Tavis: I deliberately do not want to color this question any more than I'm going to color it, but to your point about the gift that you have been blessed with, I wonder whether you think that sometimes - and we're all gifted, of course, in different ways -
Cole: - absolutely.
Tavis: Do you think sometimes that we human beings allow our gift to get in the way?
Cole: Um-hum. Yeah, it does, yeah. Because what I think we often use it for is excuses to justify other things that we should be doing that we're not doing. Yeah, absolutely. You have to tell people they have a gift at the right time. Otherwise, they will absolutely misuse and abuse. It's easy to do. We're human, you know. I mean, I have learned once again to embrace my gift, to totally cherish it. It's so precious to me. Nobody can mess with it other than me.
Tavis: That's beautiful. There are other folk - as I said earlier, I know a couple of your sisters, the twins; I met your mother before. As I said earlier, we're all gifted in different ways, you being uniquely gifted amongst the persons in your family. What do you make of that? What do you make of the fact? Do you think about why you got that as opposed to them?
Cole: I don't know. Sometimes I don't like to think about it (laughter) because I think that was a little part of my insecurity too. For years and years and years, I would say, "I don't want to be special. I don't want to be special. I want to be normal like everybody else." Finally, I guess I had to come to that conclusion just a few years ago, "You are special."
Tavis: Just a few years ago?
Cole: Just a few years ago.
Tavis: Why so long?
Cole: Because I think I was rounding out, because there were other things I was dealing with as well, so I wanted to put it all in a pile and understand that every aspect of my life is just not gonna be normal and that has to do with relationships as well. I had to come to terms with that too, you know, want to be normal, want to have a normal relationship. You can't have a normal relationship, you know. You're not a normal person. You don't come from that place.
When I look back on, you know, some of the people that I've known, they didn't get it. They didn't get me, you know, and they all wanted to take something from me, you know, so I've had to finally start protecting myself more which is something I really didn't do because I was like, "I can do this, I can be like everybody else and no one is gonna take advantage of me," but that's what people do.
Tavis: The record, "Still Unforgettable," I've been dying to ask you this one question. Your father had so many hits and it really circles back to that conversation we had earlier about voices matching. What made you know that "Walking My Baby Back Home" was the track for this record, given what we heard on the first one?
Cole: You know, "Unforgettable," the song was so incredible. I knew that we couldn't match it, so I just looked, you know, at his discography and said, "What can we pick that won't have any reflection on that song?" Because if we had tried to do another ballad, we would have gotten killed, you know. I think that the critics would have said, "Oh, she's trying to do another…"
In the sense of just giving that presence, that's why I chose "Walking My Baby Back Home." I wanted something fresh, a little more fun, a little more happy. You know, not the drama. "Unforgettable" made so many people cry to this day. They just boo-hooed, you know (laughter). They do.
Tavis: (Laughter) What do you like about "Walking My Baby Back Home" as a song?
Cole: Oh, it's so much fun. I've always liked that song. I remember when we were little and we'd sing it with my dad.
Tavis: While we're on your dad's discography, give me a couple of songs that were not his better hits, his bigger hits. I can't say better. All his stuff is good. I'm gonna say bigger, not better.
Cole: All right.
Tavis: They weren't his bigger hits, but that you would encourage folk to go check out, that you really liked, that weren't "Unforgettable," that weren't "Walking My Baby Back Home," but you really, really liked these tracks by your dad.
Cole: I got to tell you that there is a CD coming out in January that my sister and the family have put together. It's called "Re:Generations" and we've got all kinds of hip-hop artists, producer artists, doing songs with my father. Wait until you hear this stuff. It is crazy.
Tavis: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm trying to hear this. Nat King Cole -
Cole: - you are the first person to get this news.
Tavis: Nat King Cole and hip-hop?
Cole: Yes.
Tavis: How's that gonna work?
Cole: There's Nas, there's will.i.am, there's the Brazilian Girls. I mean, it is wild. Wait until you hear what they have done. They took their choice of the track of dad's and remixed it. I'm on there too with will.i.am doing "Straighten Up and Fly Right." Ours is probably the more normal version. Everybody else is so crazy.
There's a song on there that dad does called "Anytime, Any Day, Anywhere." Beautiful song. I never heard it before. I never heard it. It is fascinating. This whole CD, you've got to check it out, Tavis.
Tavis: "Re-Generations."
Cole: "Re-Generations."
Tavis: So obviously your daddy would approve of what you're doing with him.
Cole: Yeah. Well, he was a pace-setter. He was not a trend follower. That's just not who he was.
Tavis: So what might he be saying about this record that's about to drop in January?
Cole: He'd be fascinated. He'd be absolutely fascinated because I'm sure that he never heard any of those songs that way when he was recording them, you know, that 50 years later that somebody would come along and just turn it inside out. It's great. It's absolutely great.
Tavis: It sounds to me like this project, if it's successful which I'm sure it will be with those kind of artists on, will introduce your father to a whole other generation of people.
Cole: Totally, and that was the whole point, yeah. It's really, really great and they were so enthusiastic to, you know, come together. The challenge was to take the smoothness of dad's voice and that tone and put it with some serious beats and some serious - you know, there's additional lyrics that they've added and, you know, some of the artists are putting a little something on there.
It's just wild. I heard it and it blew my mind. I mean, it's one of probably the most extreme records I've heard in a long time. I'm very proud of my sister.
Tavis: I'm still trying to hear it in my head because you're right. Your dad, again back to our conversation, is so smooth.
Cole: Oh, definitely. Silky smooth, sophisticated.
Tavis: Put them beats on top of it is - yeah.
Cole: But wait until you hear it. It's really cool, it's really cool.
Tavis: I'll try to get this.
Cole: We'll make sure that we send you - make sure we send him a copy (laughter).
Tavis: You got things - I can get a bootleg in about five (laughter). I can go online and download it somewhere. There's a bootleg version of it somewhere.
How did you choose the rest of the tracks on there because, again, there's some standards on here. Your voice, again, is so pure and so pristine.
Cole: Thank you.
Tavis: How did you make the choices to put some of the other tracks on there?
Cole: You know, this record is a tribute more to the artists that I met through my father, or I met their music. Lena Horne, Nancy, Sammy Davis, Jr. They all did versions of these songs and that's how I chose them.
Tavis: When you were a kid, were there a couple of artists - to your point now, on meeting people through your father - who you really, really liked as a kid?
Cole: I did. There were quite a few.
Tavis: I mean, just on a personal level.
Cole: Yeah. I mean, he wasn't a great singer, but Danny Thomas was someone that I enjoyed. Oh, he was just so wonderful to us. Ella was a friend of the family. She really was. Peggy Lee. I mean, my father knew a lot of great women (laughter). They all just loved him, but, you know, my mom was cool with it. There were quite a lot of women that we loved. Pearl Bailey was always at the house. Lena Horne and my mother were good friends. Gee, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Tavis: I just crack up hearing you tell me these stories because, for you to be a kid and to get exposed -
Cole: - and didn't know nothing. You know, couldn't really appreciate the moment, you know, because I was just like, "Uncle Sammy, Auntie Ella."
Tavis: These folks just aren't stars. They're icons.
Cole: Icons, yes. And it was so great because during that time almost at every kind of a Christmas party, at least at our house, those same people would be over at the house and, you know, they'd sit around a piano. They were still musicians at heart. They'd sit around that piano and they would just jam, you know, to the wee hours of the morning.
I remember going to a party as an adult to Frank Sinatra's home. Same thing. You know, years later and he would tell me how they used to do that all the time. You know, it was him, it was Dean Martin, it was Edie and -
Tavis: - Edie and Steve.
Cole: Edie and Steve, it was a couple of other people I don't remember, and we were all sitting around that piano. Steve was playing and we were just sitting around. God, it was just such a moment. Really great.
Tavis: Let me circle back to your dad and this hip-hop generation because I cannot get that (laughter). That's still stuck.
Cole: (Laughter) I got you now.
Tavis: Yeah, you got me. I want that CD like right now.
Cole: Right, right.
Tavis: I mean, this generation because of this CD in January is gonna get introduced to Nat King Cole. What do you think that artists today - I don't mean just hip-hop artists - artists today need to learn from your father's gift, from his artistry?
Cole: Well, again, I think being a pace-setter, not trying to follow what everybody else is doing, having the courage and the confidence to, you know, set your own footprint. Hard to do, especially in this time that we're in with the way the business is.
Tavis: What makes it so hard to do?
Cole: I guess the hype that we're giving to young people now. It's all about, you know, making the dollars, making the greenbacks, you know. It's really not about the art. It's not about the passion, you know.
I get crazy because I hear some talent, but it ends up getting swooped up and suppressed by, I think, a misnomer from either the record label or from the managers or from the people that are kind of supposedly "in charge." You can't let them be that much in charge. You have to be in charge. They are working for you. That's why it's called show business. It's still part of the business.
Dad was not great at the business, you know. He just wanted to sing. So my mom had to step in and make sure that he didn't get ripped off because that is part of the business. So your gift or your talent will end up getting, you know, sometimes misplaced, displaced because you're not paying attention, so you got to be able to do both. You got to be smart and you got to be strong.
Tavis: So your dad was smart and strong. That's why you're having a Black woman around (laughter).
Cole: That's right (laughter).
Tavis: "You ain't gonna rip my Negro off. That's not gonna happen (laughter)."
Cole: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. So many times, so many of our wonderful Black talents didn't have anybody watching their back, you know. It's too bad because they ended up with no money.
Tavis: Natalie Cole is back with a new CD, "Still Unforgettable." If you have the first one - and if you don't, first of all, shame on you - if you have the first one, you've got to get the second one. It is as good as the first one and we are so delighted to have Natalie on the program. Natalie, all the best to you.
Cole: Thank you, and same to you.
Tavis: I know I speak for a whole lot of people when I say we are praying for you every day for all the best.
Cole: Thank you. I do appreciate it. Thank you for the prayers, yes.
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