Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama. When Cole was four years old, his father, Edward, a Baptist minister, accepted a pastorship of a church in Chicago, Illinois. The family, which included Cole's mother, Perlina, his older brother, Edward, and two sisters, Eddie Mae and Evelyn, moved north. Two younger brothers, Issac and Lionel (called Freddie), were born later in Chicago. Perlina Coles, choir director at her husband's church, introduced her children to music early on and all four of her sons became professional musicians. As a small child, Cole could pump out "Yes, We Have No Bananas" on the piano and liked to stand in front of the radio with a ruler in...