Nat King Cole, born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919, was an African American pianist and singer. Raised in Chicago, he learned piano and organ from his mother, Perlina, the organist at the churches his father pastored, and studied music that included gospel, jazz and European classical works. He also listened to performers such as Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and Jimmie Noone.
Cole first became known as a jazz pianist, leading the King Cole Trio from the late 1930s with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince, a group that became a top-selling attraction. His baritone singing then reached wider audiences: "Straighten Up and Fly Right," written by Cole with Irving Mills in 1943, became one of the trio's first vocal hits.
In 1956, The Nat King Cole Show made him the first African American to host a national network television show, bringing a Black man into the living rooms of millions of white Americans every week. The program struggled to attract sponsorship amid racial prejudice; major national advertisers that backed white entertainers' programs declined to sponsor Cole's show. That same year, white supremacists attacked him onstage during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama. His visibility brought opportunity alongside the dangers and restrictions imposed on Black performers.
Some critics wanted him to speak out more openly about racial injustice. He belonged to his local NAACP branch and performed at benefit concerts supporting its work against discrimination. He died in 1965.
