ALBUM: Just One of Those Things (1958)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
It was a different time, a timeless time.
Nat King Cole was a smooth guy. Frank Sinatra-like in Cole’s crooning phase. My father tells me he was a big jazz guy with a trio in his earlier days. This album with a few pops and snaps has the brass blasting and retreating behind universal themed lyrics of love lost and found. “A Cottage for Sale” sets the tone with its title.
My favorite is ‘These Foolish Things Remind Me of You,’ partly because it is a great song but also because I had heard Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music do it. So I had familiarity going in.
A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces
An airline ticket to romantic places
Still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you
An airline ticket to romantic places
Still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you
A tinkling piano in the next apartment
Those stumblin’ words that told you what my heart meant
A fair ground painted swings
These foolish things remind me of you
Those stumblin’ words that told you what my heart meant
A fair ground painted swings
These foolish things remind me of you
Ahh, timeless stuff. And you followers of my blog know I have spent some time thinking about time.
Cole was a great piano player and singer. He became in the late ’50s the first black host of a TV series, a variety show.
He was born in Montgomery, yes, Alabama. But his family moved to Chicago when he was a tyke of 4.
As may be expected Cole dealt with his share of racism in the 1950s and 60s including an incident in Birmingham where he was performing in 1956.
According to the Birmingham News three members of the Alabama Citizens Council attacked and tried to kidnap him before being thwarted by law enforcement.
He didn’t finish the concert and never again played in the South.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.