Two decades after the tour, Shirley still bristled about the way he had to corral his career because of his skin color. As such, the musician rerouted his passion-melding his beloved classical music with more popular genres, like jazz, and playing the unrefined nightclubs he despised. Before collecting two honorary degrees and an apartment above Carnegie Hall, the Florida-born musician was told by a manager that American audiences were not ready to accept a “colored” pianist. Shirley was a musical prodigy who sat down at a piano at age 2 played much of the standard concert repertory by age 10 and made his concert debut at age 18, playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. Don Shirley prepared to tour the South, the concert pianist wisely recruited backup. That was what I thought you wanted.” Cole never performed in the South again.
But none of that mattered to those audience members in Montgomery.Ĭole was so stunned and confused by the attack that, before leaving for the hospital, he told the crowd, “I just came here to entertain you. By that time, Cole had sold millions of records and was slated to become the first black man to host a nationally televised variety program later that year. In 1956, Nat King Cole was performing in his home state of Alabama when he was attacked onstage by members of the Ku Klux Klan, who had been waiting in the all-white audience of 4,000.
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