Singer Natalie Cole died yesterday in Los Angeles at 65. Cole had a gorgeous voice and did have success in the mid-70s with some Top Ten R&B hits, like “This Will Be”, and tried for a comeback in the the 80s before she had to go away due to “exhaustion”, the kind that comes in the form of a needle. You kids might not have heard of her, but in the 90s, Cole was not only back, for a time she was huge, due to a duets album with her much more famous, now equally dead, father, the legendary Nat “King” Cole.
You choose: rather be a washed up R&B singer with some decent songs on your resume, or come back to global superstardom and Grammy love but by, in some critic’s opinions, exploiting your dad’s hits by inserting your voice into the arrangements?
Before there was Hologram Tupac, there was Obi-Wan King Cole at the Latin Grammys in 2013. What exactly the audience was seeing in the room is unclear, but this just looks…weird.
Beautiful voices though. RIP, Natalie.
More PCB: Pat Francis loves him some Nat King Cole
A former ABC National, Dallas and Atlanta radio personality, Martina O'Boyle is now making movies and covering culture in London, Dublin, and as far in Europe as the cheapie flights will take her, for Pop Culture Beast.