''Natalie Cole en Español'' is the 20th and final studio album by

Natalie Cole Natalie Maria Cole (February 6, 1950 – December 31, 2015) was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was the daughter of American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to success in the mid-1970s as an R&B singer with the ...

, released on June 25, 2013 through

Verve Records Verve Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simon ...

. Produced by the Cuban American composer

Rudy Pérez Rudy Amado Pérez (born May 14, 1958) is a Cuban-born American musician, songwriter, composer, producer, arranger, sound engineer, musical director and singer, as well as entertainment entrepreneur, and philanthropist. His area of specialty is ...

, it is her first and only

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

album and her first record released following her kidney transplant in 2009. The album is a follow-up to her third

Christmas album Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject m ...

'' Caroling, Caroling: Christmas with Natalie Cole.'' ''Natalie Cole en Español'' consists of twelve tracks, which are cover versions of Spanish standards. The album features duets with

Juan Luis Guerra Juan Luis Guerra Seijas (born June 7, 1957) is a Dominican musician, singer, composer, and record producer. He has sold 30 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling Latin music artists. Throughout his career, he has wo ...

Chris Botti Christopher Stephen Botti ( ; born October 12, 1962) is an award-winning American trumpeter and composer. In 2013, Botti won the Grammy Award in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category, for the album ''Impressions''. He was also nominated i ...

Arthur Hanlon Arthur Hanlon is an American pianist, songwriter and arranger who is widely known in the Latin music realm and has had multiple hits on the Billboard chart Andrea Bocelli Andrea Bocelli (; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting fro ...

and a posthumous duet with her father

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

Background

Cole had expressed interest in recording a Spanish album for nearly a decade but her label

Capitol A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity. Specific capitols include: * United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. * Numerou ...

rejected her pitch and told her "the timing wasn't right".

David Foster David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans mor ...

, with whom she had previously worked with on '' Unforgettable... with Love'' (1991), encouraged to attempt to record the album again. Cole cited Salvadoran nurse Esther as one of the primary influences for the recording of the album. Cole received a kidney transplant from Esther's niece in 2009 and referred to her connection with the nurse as causing her to be "drawn even more to Latin people, Latin programs". She added her connection to the Salvadoran family led her to "feel like

he's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

part Latino now" and "(made) the desire to make this record become even stronger". Weary of comparisons to her father's 1958 Spanish album '' Cole Español'', Cole described her album as "not einga tribute to my father as much as it is a tribute to Latin music because of my father". During the recording of the album, Pérez served as Cole's language coach. Cole said "Black people and Hispanic people have the same kind of feel for passion, for music, for fun, for heart." She expressed a love for language by listing "I love French ... I love Portuguese, I love Italiano but emphasized that "for erright now is Español". In the recording sessions, Pérez translated the lyrics into English to allow Cole to capture the emotions of the songs. Cole recalled on the first days of recording that she cried as "the translation of these Spanish lyrics is like poetry." When listening to the album, she found that " heliked erelf singing in Spanish". She compared the recording process to that of ''Unforgettable... with Love'' as it allowed her to step out of her comfort zone to create what she viewed as art.

Reception

Critical response

''Natalie Cole en Español'' received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Andy Kellman of ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

'' described the album as not being "a mere throwback to a brief phase in Nat's career". Kellman called it "a likable diversion from her norm" and commended her for using zest to make up for her lack of fluency. ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of grow ...

''' Christopher Loudon commended Cole's "deeper emotional connection to the lyrics" in comparison to her father's Spanish albums. Loudon praised the album as "all slickly grand-scale, yet it works satisfyingly well". ''Soultracks''' Justin Kantor wrote that the album is "a polished set largely ''baladas romanticas'' with sweeping orchestration and spicy, yet decidedly controlled, vocal performances". Kantor found certain songs required "a tad more rhythmic creativity and free-spirited singing", but recommended the overall product to her fans.

Track listing

Personnel

– lead vocals * Ana Cristina – additional backing vocals * Casey Cole – additional backing vocals * Timolin Cole – additional backing vocals *

– sampled vocals (3) *

Andrea Bocelli Andrea Bocelli (; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting fro ...

– lead vocals (5) * Jochem van der Saag – programming * Clay Perry – acoustic piano (1, 6, 7) *

– acoustic piano (2, 3, 4, 9, 10), additional keyboards (8), keyboards (12), additional backing vocals *

Arthur Hanlon Arthur Hanlon is an American pianist, songwriter and arranger who is widely known in the Latin music realm and has had multiple hits on the Billboard chart nylon guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of ...

(1, 12), guitars (2) * Brian Monroney – additional guitars (1, 12), guitars (2, 3, 4, 6-10) *

– electric guitar (11), lead vocals (11), choir vocals *

Ramón Stagnaro Ramón Stagnaro (May 10, 1954 – February 16, 2022) was a Peruvian guitarist and producer who had a career of 40 years, and who had toured or recorded with many great artists such as Alex Acuña, Eva Ayllon, Diana Ross, Gino Vannelli, Celine Di ...

– acoustic guitar (11) * Julio Hernandez – bass (1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12) *

Chuck Bergeron Chuck is a masculine given name or a nickname for Charles or Charlie. It may refer to: People Arts and entertainment * Chuck Alaimo, American saxophonist, leader of the Chuck Alaimo Quartet * Chuck Barris (1929–2017), American TV producer * ...

– upright bass (3, 7) * Abednego DeLos Santos – bass (11) * Orlando Hernandez – drums (1-4, 6, 7, 9, 10) * Eduardo Rodriguez – percussion (1-4, 6-10) * Juan De La Cruz –

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

(11),

maracas A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...

(11) * Isidro Bobadilla –

chimes Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within ...

* Mike Brignola – baritone saxophone (1, 6-9) * Gary Keller – alto saxophone (1, 6-9) *

Ed Calle Ed Calle (born ''Eduardo J. Calle'') is a musician from Miami, Florida. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Calle plays the saxophones, flutes, clarinets, EWI, and keyboards, engineers projects, and performs vocals. He also composes and arrange ...

– tenor saxophone (1, 3, 6-9) * Nadine Asin – flute (4, 7) * Paul Green – clarinet (7) * John Kricker – trombone (1, 6-9) * Francisco Dimus – flugelhorn, trumpet * Jim Hacker – trumpet (1, 6-9) *

– trumpet solo (9) * Victor Mitrov – trumpet (11) String section * Violins – Priscilla Gomez, Giorni Liriano, Guillermo Mota, Beckyrene Perez and Rosanna Rosario * Cellos – Milena Zigkovic and Georgina Betancourt * Violas – Anaris Iznaga and Alberto Iznaga * Concertmaster – Glenn Basham

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Natalie Cole en Espanol 2013 albums Natalie Cole albums Spanish-language albums Verve Records albums Albums produced by Rudy Pérez Latin pop albums by American artists