IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED

TRIBUTE TO NAT ``KING'' COLE

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                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 13, 2019

  Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of Nat 
``King'' Cole, who was born one hundred years ago on March 17, 1919 in 
Montgomery, Alabama.
   Mr. Cole is recognized for being one of the most distinguished and 
exemplary music recording artists of all time and as a talisman for the 
civil rights movement.
   Nat King Cole began his music career with a focus on jazz, having 
founded the Nat King Cole Trio as a young man. The band quickly became   


an influential melodic phenomenon. He signed with Capitol Records in 
1943, and the release of his first album, The King Cole Trio, followed 
in 1945. The album was widely successful as it hit the top of 
Billboard's inaugural album chart. The talented pianist and vocalist 
went on to record approximately 700 songs under Capitol Record's label, 
including 150 singles that appeared on the R&B, Pop and/or Country 
charts of Billboard. Mr. Cole's success caused Capitol Record's 
legendary Hollywood building on Vine Street to be informally nicknamed 
``The House That Nat Built.''
   In 1946, he hosted the nationally aired, fifteen-minute ``King Cole 
Trio Time,'' which was the first broadcast of its kind to have an 
African American musician as a host. Mr. Cole made history once again 
in 1956 when he became the first African American performer to host his 
own network television show, NBC's ``Nat King Cole Show.'' He also 
appeared in numerous films, including St. Louis Blues and Cat Ballou.
   Along with his legendary musical career, Mr. Cole is remembered for 
his milestone leadership in the civil rights movement. After purchasing 
a house in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood in 1948, he became a 
target of the Ku Klux Klan who burned a cross on his family's lawn. 
This horrific incident spurred him to help overturn a 1920's City of 
Los Angeles statute that allowed the neighborhood to be segregated.
   Before Mr. Cole's premature death in 1965, when he was just 45 years 
old, his final album, L-O-V-E, reached number four on the Billboard 
album chart. At that time, Capital Records had sold more than nine 
million Nat King Cole records. Nat King Cole received many honors 
including being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, receiving 
a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and being featured on a 
U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp.
   Married in 1948, Mr. Cole and his wife, Maria had five children: 
Natalie, Carole, Nat Kelly, Casey and Timolin. In 2008, their twin 
daughters, Timolin and Casey Cole, founded Nat King Cole Generation 
Hope to help fund music programs for schools across America.
   I ask all Members of Congress to join me in recognizing Nat King 
Cole on the one-hundred-year milestone of his birth. Mr. Cole's life is 
a lesson in success despite adversity, the triumph of respect, talent 
and civility coupled with cultural, business and political savvy.

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