A Quote by Robert Gottlieb

Of the great singing stars of the 1940s and '50s, only one - Nat King Cole - died young, at age 45.

Robert Gottlieb

Quote Topics

Age Died Great King Only Singing Stars Young

Quote Author

Robert Gottlieb
American - Writer
Born: April 29, 1931

Gospel music was very prevalent in my house. My mother also loved Nat King Cole. That was some of the first music that I heard. Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole and the Mississippi Mass Choir.

Gregory Porter

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

Harry Connick, Jr.

I couldn't get away from the gramophone. It was the only thing that I ever really liked, and I was singing along by the time I was five years old - to the Modernaires and Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.

Hugh Masekela

I love the music from Nat King Cole, BB King, Albert King... When I think of it, I wouldn't mind being renamed Angus King.

Angus Young

I was 5 years old when I first broke into my mother's records and played Nat King Cole, and sat alongside the stereo and listened to Nat's music.

Gregory Porter

I can laugh at myself because I've had to. Everything would have been much worse if I'd been the singing son of Nat 'King' Cole.

Natalie Cole

I used to sing like Nat King Cole. I mean he was the guy when I was comin' up, and you know, man, people used to say of me, "Damn, he sure do sound like Nat King Cole." But there was a day, and luckily for me it was early, when I woke up and asked myself, "Well, when are the ask me to sing because I sound like me?" So my advice is, never do anything that you don't like.

Ray Charles

Probably more than anybody else, I loved Nat 'King' Cole as a performer - not only his singing but his piano playing. Whenever he had a new record come out, I'd get it and try to learn how he was playing. And he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.

Bruce Forsyth

Nat King Cole - I listen to him a lot.

Ry Cooder

Nat King Cole was a really big influence.

Bryan White

I believe it was Nat King Cole that my dad took me to see, and we were sitting in the dressing room, and I blurted out to him, 'Why didn't you sing this?' Referring to whatever song I had wanted to hear, and he told me he was tired of singing it.

Johnny Mathis

When my generation, those early days of television - I know I've been thinking about this lately - my two flashes of me as a little boy. One, I'm standing in front of the radio freaking out that Nat King Cole's singing 'Lady of Spain', just this stuff coming out of the radio, and Guy Williams singing 'Wild Horses' coming out of the radio.

Jonathan Demme

My mother says I was two-and-a-half when I started playing. My father was a minister, and when he went to church in the morning, she would put on Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Cole Porter records. I'd crawl up on the piano stool, sit on a phone book and play.