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I … started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out.

— Nat King Cole Spoken in VOA interview (1956)

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Source and credibility

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Source: Spoken in VOA interview (c. 1956) broadcast on Pop Chronicles Show 22 - Smack Dab in the Middle on Route 66: A skinny dip in the easy listening mainstream.
Work: Spoken in VOA interview, 1956
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

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«There's just one thing I can't understand. My income tax!”».

I felt something impossible for me to explain in words. Then when they took her away, it hit me. I got scared all over again and began to feel giddy. Then it came to me— I was a father."

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Notes from Wikiquote

Also on cassette 3, side B of cite book | Pop Chronicles Interviews #131 - Nat "King" Cole.

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Straighten up and fly right
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Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top.

Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free.

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I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

Nat King Cole (1990)

Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.

Comment on why his hit NBC TV show couldn't get a national sponsor (1956)

I'm a businessman. I work for business people. The kind of thing they say is: Now we've sold a lot of records, let's sell some more.

British interview (1963)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nat King Cole (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.