美国国家公共电台 NPR Nat King Cole Still Remains 'One Of The Great Gifts Of Nature' 100 Years Later

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Nat King Cole was born a hundred years ago today. He was one of the most influential¹ entertainers of the 20th century. He topped the charts year after year, selling more than 50 million records. He helped push jazz piano in a new direction. And, as an African-American, he paved the way for later generations of performers. Tom Vitale has this tribute.

(SOUNDBITE OF NAT KING COLE SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")

TOM VITALE, BYLINE²: His voice unmistakable and...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")

NAT KING COLE: (Singing) Unforgettable, that's what you are.

DANIEL MARK EPSTEIN: Nat King Cole's voice is really one of the great gifts of nature. Remember; he was never trained as a singer. And so his voice is absolutely pure.

VITALE: Daniel Mark Epstein is author of the 1999 biography "Nat King Cole."

EPSTEIN: He's a baritone - and absolutely perfect pitch. He sings the notes true, and he hits them right in the center.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")

COLE: (Singing) Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me.

VITALE: Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Ala., and raised in Chicago. His mother taught him to play the piano when he was 4, and he was a child prodigy³. At 15, he dropped out of high school to lead his own bands. His first recordings⁴ show the influence of his idol⁵, Earl Hines.

(SOUNDBITE OF DEXTER GORDON AND NAT KING COLE'S "ROSETTA")

VITALE: By the time he was 18, Cole was married, living in Los Angeles and fronting a nightclub act with a name that riffed on a nursery rhyme, the King Cole Trio, featuring guitar, bass⁶ and piano and not a lot of vocals⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE KING COLE TRIO'S "LESTER LEAPS IN")

VITALE: The King Cole Trio had a huge influence on other musicians. Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal formed similar trios. Dan Epstein says if Cole had never crooned a note, he'd still be an important figure in jazz.

EPSTEIN: He really is, I would say, one of our top five greatest and most influential jazz pianists.

(SOUNDBITE OF NAT KING COLE'S "WILD GOOSE CHASE")

JOHNNY MATHIS: That is the way that I fell in love with his music is through his piano-playing. And then, of course, I occasionally listened to him singing. And that wasn't too bad either (laughter).

VITALE: Eighty-three-year-old balladeer Johnny Mathis grew up listening to his father's favorite singer in the 1940s.

MATHIS: My dad was a singer. And Nat King Cole was the god of popular music in our house.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT")

COLE: (Singing) A buzzard took a monkey for a ride in the air. The monkey thought that everything was on the square. The buzzard tried to throw the monkey off his back, but the monkey grabbed his neck and said, now, listen, Jack⁸. Straighten up and fly right.

VITALE: The Nat King Cole Trio had one hit after another, and its leader became wildly popular. In 1946, the King Cole Trio landed a national radio show, the first of its kind to be hosted by an African-American musician. Cole began to play less jazz and sing more ballads⁹.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAURA")

COLE: (Singing) She gave your very first kiss to you. That was Laura, but she's only a dream.

VITALE: By the 1950s, Nat Cole's repertoire¹⁰ was mostly love songs backed by strings¹¹. He told a Swiss television reporter he was simply giving his fans what they wanted.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

COLE: You see, it's not a case of my personal likes. I try to please as many people as I possibly can. And if I find that people like certain things, then I try to give them what they like. And that's good business, too, you see.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What do you prefer, to sing or to play?

COLE: I prefer to do whatever I do.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MONA LISA")

COLE: (Singing) Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you. You're so like the lady with the mystic smile.

VITALE: Nat King Cole saw himself as an entertainer not an activist¹². But his April 10, 1956, performance in Alabama was a crucial moment in race relations, says biographer Dan Epstein.

EPSTEIN: He went down to the South to perform with an interracial band, which was pretty bold and offensive to a lot of whites. But then he agreed to play for segregated¹³ audiences, which offended his black audience.

VITALE: Cole agreed to play a 10 p.m. show at the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium¹⁴ for black audiences and an early show for white audiences. That performance attracted a group of local white supremacists.

EPSTEIN: The White Citizens Council of Alabama had this plot to kidnap Cole from the theater. The plot failed, but the hoodlums did storm the stage. They knocked Nat Cole off the piano bench, injured his back.

VITALE: A doctor treated Cole in his dressing¹⁵ room, and the singer returned to the stage for the late show. The incident made national news. And seven months later, Nat King Cole became the first major African-American musician to host a national variety show on television.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE NAT KING COLE SHOW")

COLE: (Singing) In the evenings, may I come and sing to you all the songs that I would like to bring to you?

VITALE: "The Nat King Cole Show" had a large audience. But no national sponsor would back a show with a black host for fear of alienating¹⁶ Southern viewers. NBC was losing money, and Cole canceled the weekly program after a little more than a year. But he continued to reach a wide audience through records that topped the charts, says Dan Epstein.

EPSTEIN: That was the great gift of his charisma¹⁷, that there was so much passion in his voice and so much intelligence that he was able to transcend¹⁸ the color barrier.

VITALE: When singer Johnny Mathis moved to Beverly Hills in 1958, he met Nat King Cole. And they became friends.

MATHIS: He is the nicest man you ever want to meet in your life - just a very down-to-earth person who happened to be one of the greatest musicians of all time. And he became, of course, a model for so many people, especially someone like myself.

VITALE: Nat King Cole didn't live long enough to see his career overshadowed by rock 'n' roll. A heavy smoker¹⁹ all his life, Cole was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964. He went into the studio for the last time in June that year.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "L-O-V-E")

COLE: (Singing) L is for the way you look at me.

VITALE: Nat King Cole died on February 15, 1965. He was 45 years old. For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "L-O-V-E")

COLE: (Singing) Love is all that I can give to you. Love is more than just a game for two...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lost too soon.

1 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 prodigy   

n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆

参考例句：

• She was a child prodigy on the violin.她是神童小提琴手。
• He was always a Negro prodigy who played barbarously and wonderfully.他始终是一个黑人的奇才，这种奇才弹奏起来粗野而惊人。

4 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

5 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

6 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

7 vocals   

（乐曲中的）歌唱部份，声乐部份( vocal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Also look out for soaring vocals on The Right Man. 另外，也可留意一下《意中人》中的那高亢的唱腔。
• Lazy bass line, lazier drums, lush violins, great piano and incomparable vocals. 懒惰的低音线，较懒惰的鼓，饮小提琴，棒的钢琴和无比的声音。

8 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

9 ballads   

民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴

参考例句：

• She belted out ballads and hillbilly songs one after another all evening. 她整晚一个接一个地大唱民谣和乡村小调。
• She taught him to read and even to sing two or three little ballads,accompanying him on her old piano. 她教他读书，还教他唱两三首民谣，弹着她的旧钢琴为他伴奏。

10 repertoire   

n.(准备好演出的)节目，保留剧目；(计算机的)指令表，指令系统， <美>(某个人的)全部技能；清单，指令表

参考例句：

• There is an extensive repertoire of music written for the flute.有很多供长笛演奏的曲目。
• He has added considerably to his piano repertoire.他的钢琴演奏曲目大大增加了。

11 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

12 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

13 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

14 auditorium   

n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂

参考例句：

• The teacher gathered all the pupils in the auditorium.老师把全体同学集合在礼堂内。
• The stage is thrust forward into the auditorium.舞台向前突出，伸入观众席。

15 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

16 alienating   

v.使疏远( alienate的现在分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等）

参考例句：

• The phenomena of alienation are widespread. Sports are also alienating. 异化现象普遍存在，体育运动也不例外。 来自互联网
• How can you appeal to them without alienating the mainstream crowd? 你是怎么在不疏忽主流玩家的情况下吸引住他们呢？ 来自互联网

17 charisma   

n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力

参考例句：

• He has enormous charisma. He is a giant of a man.他有超凡的个人魅力，是个伟人。
• I don't have the charisma to pull a crowd this size.我没有那么大的魅力，能吸引这么多人。

18 transcend   

vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围

参考例句：

• We can't transcend the limitations of the ego.我们无法超越自我的局限性。
• Everyone knows that the speed of airplanes transcend that of ships.人人都知道飞机的速度快于轮船的速度。

19 smoker   

n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室

参考例句：

• His wife dislikes him to be a smoker.他妻子不喜欢他当烟民。
• He is a moderate smoker.他是一个有节制的烟民。