re: #272 HappyWarrior

How I loved Nat King Cole.

His singing career pretty much happened by accident.

Legend had it that Cole’s singing career did not start until a drunken barroom patron demanded that he sing “Sweet Lorraine”. In fact, Cole has gone on record saying that the fabricated story “sounded good, so I just let it ride.” Cole frequently sang in between instrumental numbers. Noticing that people started to request more vocal numbers, he obliged. Yet the story of the insistent customer is not without some truth. There was a customer who requested a certain song one night, but it was a song that Cole did not know, so instead he sang “Sweet Lorraine”. The trio was tipped 15 cents for the performance, a nickel apiece.

(Wiki)

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