Nat King Cole A Personal and Professional Biography Book

Starts off really well but then loses momentum.

Nat King Cole was born to a clergyman in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama, but became part of the mass migration of blacks to the north, specifically to Chicago, between the wars. Cole learns the organ, was much influenced by jazz, started his own groups and performing, early on. Haskins is good at conveying the atmosphere of the time. Married early, Cole struggled, and at one stage sold a song Straighten up and Fly Right a publisher for 50 dollars, outright, no royalties. Success didn't elude him for long, however, especially when he started to make singing his main gig, although to be fair, he never stopped playing the piano (parenthetically, one of may favourite jazz albums of all time is The Piano Music of Nat King Cole, released in the mid-1950s. He does not sing at all). The book then becomes a little tired and less stimulating as we are taken through the trios, the concerts, the film roles, television and finally his early demise from lung cancer at 45, after a lifetime of chain smoking.

There is one particularly interesting story of Cole's efforts, against considerable opposition, to move his family into a well to do, therefore white, neighbourhood in the early fifties.