Kindred Spirits: Me & Natalie Cole

By Ron Alexander. 2-minute read.

Natalie Cole and I shared a unique bond. We were born in the same year: she was born on February 6th, 1950, in Los Angeles, California, while I was born on August 14th, 1950, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The same era shaped our lives.

Natalie was raised in an affluent family, while I was born into a middle-class family. As kids, we both loved music. She and I listened to jazz, soul, and blues for different reasons. She was interested in singing while I was curious and played my mother's albums in the house.

Her mother was a jazz singer. My mother studied music and learned to read sheet music and play the piano.

Our paths crossed in the early 1970s when she was 18 and a University of Massachusetts Amherst student. I, in turn, was a vagabond, a college wannabe traveling around the Five College Area, which includes Mt. Holyoke College, Hampshire College, Amherst College, and Smith College.

I met Natalie at a local club where she regularly performed. I interviewed her for an article I wrote for a local newspaper. She was funny, amusing, ?engaging, and easy to talk with. In my article, I predicted that Natalie would have a successful career in the recording industry. She would encounter many challenges on her way to stardom.

Eerily, we were similar.

At the same time, we both were experimenting with drugs, and it turned out we were buying drugs from the same dealer. She was buying weed, and I was buying weed. She was taking acid, and I was trying acid with parallel results.

When she graduated in 1972 from Umass, I graduated from smoking weed to snorting coke. She kicked her heroin addiction and progressed to also snorting coke. Eventually, we both moved on to smoking crack/cocaine.

In 1985, when she released her ninth studio album, Dangerous, we were both 35 years old, and we were both helplessly addicted to crack/cocaine. I didn’t kick cocaine until 1994, around the same time she released her 13th studio album, Holly & Ivy. ?

Let me make it clear. Sharing a birth year, coming from similar families, and drug use is all I shared with Natalie Cole.

She won nine Grammy Awards and received several nominations. At the 18th Annual Grammy Awards, she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, becoming the first African American recipient and R&B Act to win the award. The Singles. Sophisticated Lady (1976), I Got Love On My Mind, and Our Love (1977) followed.

Her biggest charting album, Unforgettable, With Love, was certified 7x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. She recorded an album in Spanish that sold more than a million copies. During her lifetime, Natalie sold more than 30 million records.

Although we both kicked crack/cocaine, it was too late for Natalie. In 2008. she was diagnosed with hepatitis C from intravenous drug use that went untreated for 25 years. Her kidneys failed, and she eventually died from a congestive heart attack in 2015. She was 65 years old.

I recovered from substance abuse in 1994 without any complications.

The similarities between Natalie and me are chilling--even paranormal. I considered her to be my friend.

Natalie’s passing still devastates me. She won her battles with addiction but lost her fight with health issues. Like so many others, she recovered from substance abuse but died from the effects of using drugs for too many years. She might have lived had she quit using drugs earlier in her life.

I miss her live performances and the ways she engaged with audiences.

I loved my friend. Her family adored her, and the world admired her.

I? wish she had lived after kicking heroin and crack/cocaine to enjoy life as I can do. She fulfilled her life calling during her 65 years of living while I am still fulfilling my purpose of living one day at a time.

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