Forgettable, that's what it was ...

By LINDA HERRICK


"Unforgettable, that's what you are ... " The lyrics of the velvety Nat King Cole classic may be etched into the lexicon of 20th century jazz, but when daughter Natalie dueted with her dad for a posthumous remake of the song in 1991, she was lucky to be able to remember anything at all.

It seems the 70s and early 80s were pretty much a blur for Cole's daughter, a drugged-out haze from which she was unlikely - then very lucky - to emerge alive.

Heroin, LSD, and crack cocaine were her drugs of choice, her blossoming career in music sidelined by gigs like luring clients for pimps in Harlem.

She nearly died in a Las Vegas Hilton hotel fire in 1981 - eight people didn't make it out alive - but she was too busy freebasing in her smoke-filled room to much care about her own fate.

But in 1983, after her 3-year-old son fell into a swimming pool while she was puffing on crack, she decided it was time to give it away.

She went through rehab and got her career back on track, releasing hit albums such as Everlasting, Good To Be Back, Unforgettable: With Love (containing the duets with Nat) and Stardust, featuring another hit "duet" with her father, When I Fall In Love.

In 2000, she released her startlingly frank autobiography, Angel on My Shoulder, a book to which her mother apparently reacted "negatively", and her life story was told in a telemovie, Livin' For Love, in which she starred.

Her most recent album, 2003's Ask a Woman Who Knows, received four Grammy nominations, including one for her New Zealand-born producer Alan Broadbent. She's worked with him for many years.

These days, a healthy Cole, now aged 54, is an inspiration to anyone struggling against similar odds - like her great friends Liza Minnelli and Whitney Houston.

Of Minnelli, Cole says on the phone from California, that although she sang at that mad wedding to David Gest, "She's doing fine now. She's real happy," implying Liza is better off without said house Gest.

She recently completed a short tour of Germany with Houston, famously struggling with her own drug habit, and Houston's aunt, Dionne Warwick.

Yes, "It was really great, hopefully we might be able to pull this off and do it again on a larger scale."

For now though, Cole is heading to New Zealand for a short tour: Auckland, with the Philharmonia, and Wellington, where she'll play with her own band.

She sounds in good form; a review of a show at the Langham Hilton in London described her voice as "like molasses dripping from a spoon", although she's vague about the actual repertoire she'll perform here.

She's also vague as to whether she's ever been here before, although given her past, and her busy life, that's not unexpected.

Does she regret those wasted years when, as she has said, she was partly driven into rebellion because of the expectations created by the fact she was her famous father's daughter?

"Most children of famous people do that; it's almost like a rite of passage," she says. "It's a tough one. If you decide not to follow in the footsteps of your famous parent, it can be very challenging ... but that comes with the territory."

Cole's 26-year-old music producer/drummer son seems to have avoided the pitfalls she endured after her father died when she was just 15.

"We're pretty close, it's very nice," she coos.

"You have to work at it, though, surrender to the process of life. Every now and then, something wonderful happens that makes it all worthwhile."

Performance

*Who: Natalie Cole, with the Auckland Philharmonia

*Where and when: Aotea Centre, Sunday and Monday, 7.30pm