Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole

by Will Friedwald

One of the most popular and memorable American musicians of the 20th century, Nat King Cole (1919-65) is remembered today as both a pianist and a singer, a feat rarely accomplished in the world of popular music. Now, in this complete life and times biography, author Will Friedwald offers a new take on this fascinating musician, framing him first as a bandleader and then as a star. In Cole's early phase, Friedwald explains, his primary task of keeping his trio going was just as much of a focus for him as his own playing and singing, always a collective or group performance. In the second act, Cole's collaborators were more likely to be arranger-conductors like Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, rather than his sidemen on bass and guitar. In the first act, his sidemen were equals, in the second phase, his collaborators were tasked exclusively with putting the focus on him, making him sound good, while being largely invisible themselves.

Friedwald brings his full musical knowledge to bear in putting the man in the work, demonstrating how this duality appears over and over again in Cole's life and career: jazz vs. pop, solo vs. trio, piano vs. voice, wife number one (Nadine) vs. wife number two (Maria), the good songs vs. the less-than-good songs, the rhythm numbers vs. the ballads, the funny songs and novelties vs. the "serious" songs of love and loss, Cole as an advocate for the Great American Songbook vs. Cole the intrepid explorer of other options: world music, rhythm & blues, country & western. Cole was different from his contemporaries in other ways; for roughly ten years after the war, the majority of hitmakers on the pop charts were veterans of the big band experience, from Sinatra on down.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History

648 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2020

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A huge biography and very thorough in detailing Nat King Cole’s music, but I never got a sense of the man.

[Phil Atteberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

In many ways, this book is a companion volume to Friedwald's Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art (1997). The books were published twenty-two years apart--in part because both books contain mountainous, time consuming research. (This book, for example, contains 527 pages of text and 62 pages of notes, most of which are well worth reading.)

Both books focus on the music of the artists rather than the biographical nitty-gritty. About one third of each book is focused on biography and two thirds musical analysis. As for Nat Cole, if one is interested in biographical detail, Daniel Mark Epstein's 1999 biography is the book to read.

Straighten Up and Fly Right is primarily a detailed analysis Nat King Cole's music and its evolution. Virtually every recording session is discussed and every album analyzed. Particular attention is given to producers, arrangers, important side men and influences. Will Friedwald has a knack for analyzing music in an insightful and accessible way. The biggest compliment I can give this book is that it has prompted to be go to back to many of Cole's recordings and give them a fresh listen.

I loved this book. However, it is only for Nat Cole enthusiasts. The general reader will likely be fatigued by the detailed discussions of so many recordings. Readers will also benefit from a general knowledge of jazz and the recording industry of the mid-20th century.

Having said that, for the right kind of person, this is a terrific, interesting and insightful book.

[Howling Rabbit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Look, I greatly admire and enjoy the recordings of Nat "King" Cole. I would liked to have read about his influences, his musical history (especially the context), excerpts from any of his interviews (the man was incredibly articulate, even poetic), his battles with racism, etc.
But to have to plow through EVERY single newspaper article every published, EVERY single performance the man made from the time he was 11 to the end of his performing life, EVERY single person he worked with in any capacity imaginable (with a biography of them, too), page after page minutely narrating the history of practically every song Mr. Cole recorded... Over 525 pages of mind-numbing detail set in tiny type with too narrow leading was just too much to put up with. Jeez, did this mess need an editor...

[Nolan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I highly anticipated this, and I came away massively disappointed. I went into this assuming I would get a decent biography of Cole. I got a boring-as-hell discography padded with the author’s efforts to prove that he is at the very fountainhead of the Cole cognoscenti. I wish stuff like that impressed me more. It makes me wonder instead whether there’s an unhealthy obsession of some kind that needs work. Not my place to decide.

In short, if you want to read about every musician who may have played with Cole on even an obscure 78-RPM record, this is your book, no question. If you want a biography that looks at the failure of one marriage and the almost-collapse of a second one, this won’t cut it.

I had hoped to learn more about how his life affected his kids. What motivated Natalie to make that duet album? What must that have been like to mingle her voice with his and experience anew a kind of father-daughter closeness? You’re not going to find stuff like that in this endless morass of names and dates. There’s almost no human face to this book. If you want a Cole reference tome, read this and love it for that. If you want a better understanding of the man behind the music, look anywhere else but this book.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will Friedwald is clearly an enthusiastic fan of Nat King Cole. Essentially, every single song Cole ever played or sang is catalogued in this book. If that is what you are interested in, then this book is for you. I found it tedious and really too much. There was not enough about Cole as a person, and aspects of his life other than the specific album and songs played. Friedwald interviewed a number of people, but their stories did not really bring Cole to life.

[Art]

rough notes from my music memoir, a work-in-progress: Nat King Cole's family moved to Chicago from Alabama in 1923, when he was four. He learned to play organ from his mother. Cole played the Edgewater Beach Hotel. My first grade teacher lived next door, in the Edgewater Beach Apartments.

[M Pye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was looking for in a biography of NKC. Too much listing of musicians and songs, not enough insight into the man.