Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 16

Record label: Capitol

Produced: Lee Gillette

Recorded: Hollywood; December 19 and 28, 1956

Released: March 1957

Chart peaks: None (UK) 1 (US)

Personnel: Nat ‘King’ Cole (v); Gordon Jenkins And Orchestra

Track listing: When I Fall In Love (S); Love Letters; Stardust; Stay As Sweet As You Are; Where Can I Go Without You?; Maybe It’s Because I Love You; Ain’t Misbehavin’; When Sunny Gets Blue; I Thought About Marie; At Last; It’s All In The Game; Love Is The Thing

Running time: 35.47

Current CD: Not currently available

Further listening: Where Did Everybody Go? (1963), a later Cole–Jenkins collaboration, is darker in tone, reflecting, perhaps, Nat’s admiration for the Sinatra releases that followed in the path of his own

Further reading: Unforgettable: The Life And Mystique Of Nat ‘King’ Cole (Leslie Gourse, 1991); www.nat-king-cole.org

Download: Not currently legally available

Nat ‘King’ Cole could be anything you wanted him to be – a vocal purveyor of pure pop able to apply his talents to the corniest material; a classy supper-club entertainer (known in his day as ‘the sepia Sinatra’); or even a poll-winning piano player able to jam with the best in jazz. He could deliver fine albums seemingly with the minimum of effort: swinging affairs, blues-hued wonders, country capers, lounge warmers filled with sly Latin licks, anything. But Love Is The Thing was the biggest of them all.

In October 1956, Nat was signed by NBC to host a TV show, the first black entertainer to have his own slot on a major network. Gordon Jenkins was brought in to provide the arrangements on Nat’s first series and, despite problems with sponsors, it proved a winner with viewers, Nat’s easy and relaxed style attracting a sizeable audience. When the time arrived for Cole to cut his next album, it made sense to continue the partnership with Jenkins, the creator of a distinctive string sound. The songs selected ranged from perhaps over-used standards such as Stardust and Ain’t Misbehavin’ through to the lovely When Sunny Gets Blue, previously a Johnny Mathis hit, and I Thought About Marie, a Jenkins original. There was also a link with Cole’s past in When I Fall In Love, Where Can I Go Without You? and Love Letters, three songs penned by Victor Young, the composer responsible for Mona Lisa, one of Nat’s most successful singles.

Love Is The Thing proved to be not only one of Cole’s most moving albums – composer Hoagy Carmichael proclaimed Nat’s version of Stardust the finest he’d ever heard – but also his bestselling LP, sitting at the peak of the US album charts for eight consecutive weeks. Among those who sat up and took notice was Capitol label-mate Frank Sinatra. He would turn to Jenkins to recreate the same mood on Where Are You and No One Cares, releases that followed in the path of Love Is The Thing but deliberately failed to offer the feeling of hope inherent in the Cole recording. An enormously influential record, it nevertheless fails to gain a mention in Cole biographies.