Nat King Cole Birthplace — Montgomery, Alabama

Nat King Cole — Nathaniel Adams Coles — was born on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, and moved to Chicago as a child where he developed into a jazz pianist of the first rank before his smooth baritone voice made him a pop star. His trio recordings of the early 1940s — lean, elegant, swing-inflected piano-bass-guitar — were among the finest jazz small-group recordings of the era, and his subsequent career as a vocalist produced 'Unforgettable,' 'Nature Boy,' 'Mona Lisa,' 'Too Young,' and 'Straighten Up and Fly Right' — songs that defined a certain American sophistication.

Cole broke barriers as the first African American to host a television variety show in 1956 — The Nat King Cole Show on NBC — which ran for one season before losing sponsors because Southern affiliates refused to air it. His gentleness and his refusal to engage in public confrontation with racism did not protect him from it: he was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1956 by members of the North Alabama Citizens Council while his audience watched. He continued the concert calmly and finished the set.

Montgomery, Alabama — the birthplace of Cole and the cradle of the civil rights movement — has a historical marker acknowledging his birth. Cole died of lung cancer in Santa Monica in February 1965 at the age of 45. His daughter Natalie Cole later recorded a famous duet with his original recording of 'Unforgettable,' creating a technological collaboration across decades.