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20 Golden Greats

My wife's musical tastes and mine didn't overlap too much, but she had a love of the '40s and '50s crooners, which, when we met, was music I'd just begun to appreciate too. In her case, it was a taste she'd inherited from her father, who, born in the mid-'20s, had grown up listening to those singers. His particular favourite artist in that vein, and, by extension, hers, was Nat 'King' Cole. She recalled fondly how he'd sing Cole's 'Mona Lisa' (and Frankie Laine's 'That Lucky Old Sun') to her as a lullabies when she was very young.

We jointly acquired CD compilations of the bests of Cole, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee & others. At our wedding we danced to Tony Bennett's version of 'The Way You Look Tonight'. Those tunes were a large part of the soundtrack to our marriage. When her father died, 'Mona Lisa' was played at his funeral, and to hear it became more bittersweet. When my wife died, only six years later, it was played at her funeral too: ever since it's been a powerfully poignant tune for me.

I've bought a number of Nat 'King' Cole LPs in recent years. A few I haven't much cared for - they can be a bit too heavy on the syrupy-sweet ballads; a little too smooth - but I do love his At The Sands live LP, and one can't go wrong with a compilation so well-packed with classic numbers as 20 Golden Greats. It's not a record I play lightly, with 'Mona Lisa' (side 1, track 5) followed not long after by 'Smile' (side 1, track 8): if the former doesn't bring me to tears, the latter seldom fails to finish the job. 

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