“She listened raptly while we sat at attention,” Simpkins says. “He was a highly regarded singer in her mother’s eyes. She loved him. I came to love him too “ And as Simpkins, now a writer and instructor at Auburn University in Montgomery did more and more research on the popular singer, she decided his life was worthy of a biography.
The title is “Nat King Cole: An Unforgettable Life of Music...” Simpkins’ presentation Wednesday February 24 at 3:30 p.m. will offer deep insight into Cole’s life story and introduce the music he made famous. The event, on the 11th floor of Houston Cole Library, is open to the public.
Written for children, this book is intended to educate young people about popular music through the life of Cole, who was born in Montgomery, near downtown. He began his career in jazz, and loved baseball, according to Simpkins. Before he died he became not only a world famous singer but a radio and television performer as well as an actor.
“My mother inspired my writing the book,” Simpkins said. “I wanted other people to hear Cole and know who he was and realize the many ways that he was influential in our country’s history.” A teacher at heart, she thought that this title definitely had a place in education.
“I saw the book as a tool for educating a generation of students that Nat King Cole was more than Natalie Cole’s father.” she explains.
If Simpkins could have talked to Cole, what would she have asked him?
“To sing for me,” she answers quickly. “He was a phenomenal talent! If you hear his early jazz recordings you can hear the talent at work in his precision, his timing. He not only used the piano to tell a musical story, but when he added his voice, (he was a reluctant singer for a while) he put his talent to work as a vocalist of American dreams. That’s what pop music can be.”
Also, she would have asked him more about his first wife and mother, who was an organist – both important women – Simpkins adds.
There’s a good deal of information on Cole, Simpkins said. She has read all she can find, and talked with Freddie, his brother, who was living in Atlanta at the time.
“There is an authority and a humility in Cole’s singing that touches me,” she says. “And millions like me.”
She has published hundreds of essays and short stories in a variety of periodicals nationwide and in Canada. Simpkins’ second book is “The Long Good Night,” a southern Christian memoir based, in part, on essays she wrote about her family’s life in the South for out-of-state newspapers, most often The Chicago Tribune. “When our heroic father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, my sisters and I took care of him. We experienced God the Father in a new way and our love for Christ deepened as a result of our journey.” She adds that the book was released Feb. 14 on Amazon as a Kindle product.
Everyone is invited to the presentation on Wednesday. Refreshments will be served.
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