7. Loan Me Two Till Tuesday – Nat King Cole
There’s something I love about Nat King Cole. And, to be honest, it’s probably exactly the same thing everyone else who loves his stuff enjoys.
The best of his music happened just prior to rock and roll, and it was never quite jazz either. Jazz singers (and pianists) often cite him as an influence — as did some of the key rock & rollers. And yet, Cole also had something that kept him apart from the other crooners.
I think it might have been ‘cool’.
By that, I don’t mean to start a comments war with Sinatra fans who want to argue for the coolness to be spread a little more generously, and besides I wouldn’t know cool if it was presented to me in a large fridge with a label clearly marking it: “Warning – Cool”.
What I mean is that there is a sort of laidback, effortless sense of the casual about Nat King Cole that appeals to me. I always find him to be conversational. Sort of the same way that Fats Waller was conversational — but without the jokes.
Obviously that comes across in his first (and in contention for best-known) release, Straighten Up And Fly Right.
But nowhere is it more apparent than in this lesser-known track that only seems to appear in larger collections like this 3 CD set, ‘Transcriptions’.
It’s a great little song — one that deals with a friend who — y’know — has money, but just not on him at the moment. If you could sort me out till the end of the week, that’d be sweet.
None of these ‘grand themes’ of love and marriage, romance, memory and desire. Just a bloke who’s cash poor, but good for it. Nice.
Happy birthday, Mum.
