Famous Freemason - Nathaniel Adams Coles

"I'm an interpreter of stories. When I perform it's like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories."

Nathaniel Adams Coles better known as Nat King Cole was born in Montgomery Alabama before moving to Chicago at the age of four where his father became a Baptist minister. His mother, who was the church organist, began teaching him how to play the organ.

When he was 15, Bro. Cole dropped out of high school to pursue a music career. After his brother Eddie, a bassist, came home from touring with Noble Sissle, they formed a sextet and recorded two singles for Decca in 1936 as Eddie Cole's Swingsters.

Bro. Cole recorded Sweet Lorraine in 1940, and it became his first hit. According to legend, his career as a vocalist started when a drunken bar patron demanded that he sing the song. He said that this fabricated story sounded good, so he didn't argue with it.

By the 1950s, Bro. Cole emerged as a popular solo performer. He scored numerous hits, with such songs as Nature Boy, Mona Lisa, Too Young and Unforgettable. In the studio, Cole got to work with some of the country's top talent, including Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, and famous arrangers such as Nelson Riddle.

Bro. Cole made television history in 1956 when he became the first African American performer to host a variety TV series. The Nat King Cole Show featured many of the leading performers of the day, including Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Bennett. Unfortunately, the series didn't last long, going off the air in December 1957.

In 1964, Bro Cole discovered that he had lung cancer. He succumbed to the disease just months later, on February 15, 1965, at the age of 45, in Santa Monica, California.

Bro. Cole was raised in Thomas Waller Lodge No. 49 Los Angeles, California in 1944.