page_title: Natalie Cole
section_title: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Natalie Cole / Music career / Early career
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Natalie and Carole Cole. The sisters were both at NBC, Burbank for tapings. Carole (right) was taping Grady and Natalie was taping segments for The Tonight Show and The Midnight Special.
context_page_description: Natalie Maria Cole was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Cole was the daughter of American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to success in the mid-1970s as an R&B singer with the hits "This Will Be", "Inseparable", and "Our Love". She returned as a pop singer on the 1987 album Everlasting and her cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac". In the 1990s, she sang traditional pop by her father, resulting in her biggest success, Unforgettable... with Love, which sold over seven million copies and won her seven Grammy Awards. She sold over 30 million records worldwide. On December 31, 2015, Cole died due to congestive heart failure.
context_section_description: Cole grew up listening to a variety of music that included Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. After graduation in 1972 she began singing at small clubs with her band, Black Magic. Clubs initially welcomed her because she was Nat King Cole's daughter, only to be disappointed when she began singing cover versions of R&B and rock songs.
  With the assistance of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy, a songwriting and producing duo, she recorded some songs in a studio in Chicago that was owned by Curtis Mayfield. Her demo tapes led to a contract with Capitol, resulting in the release of Cole's debut album, Inseparable, which included songs that reminded listeners of Aretha Franklin. Franklin later contended that songs such as "This Will Be", "I Can't Say No", and others were offered to her while she was recording the album You but she had turned them down. Released in 1975, the album became an instant success thanks to "This Will Be", which became a top ten hit and won her a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. A second single, "Inseparable", also became a hit. Both songs reached number-one on the R&B chart. Cole also won Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards for her accomplishments, making her the first African-American artist to attain that feat. The media's billing of Cole as the "new Aretha Franklin" started a rivalry between the two singers. The feud boiled over at the 1976 Grammy Awards when Cole beat Franklin in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category, a category which Franklin had won eight times before losing to Cole.
caption: Natalie and Carole Cole at NBC studios, 1975
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