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Today I have a story to share about Natalie. Long, long ago, in the Great Jurassic, when an unthinking and murderous virus was just starting to cut down so many people, there were precious few outside the GLBT community who were brave enough to stand with us, to stand with the sick. This was before the Red Ribbons and Liz Taylor (God bless her too) this was when anyone who so much as mentioned AIDS was seen as perhaps having it. Several gospel music stars, lead by Dionne Warwick and Rev Carl Bean produced a huge fund raiser for Minority AIDS Project Los Angeles.
That night, many great voices were raised. Patti LaBelle, no less, Whitney would not come out of the choir, where she sang all night. Each performer who sang that night was a hero, taking the righteous stand early, when others were still afraid to act, to stand.
I've heard most of the world's great singers, I have witnessed some amazing performances in my lifetime. I've heard lots of Gospel music. Nat was my father's favorite singer, the only male singer he liked. Because of that, I love Nat and Natalie as well, I was happy to see her that night on stage.
Natalie Cole defined Gospel music for me that night, with one song, to this day I have never seen or heard such a performance. The song was about 'stomping on the devil' and Natalie, she was not just singing about it, she was stomping on the Devil, right there. That virus, her own personal demons, the Devil. She placed him on the floor and sang him down. I do not believe in the Devil as a personal entity. But I do believe Natalie that night served the purpose all art aspires to and rarely reaches. That song, is was not 'a gospel song' it WAS the Gospel. It was good overcoming evil, that song, that tiny little girl, Natalie, she contained so much love and power and hurt and redemption, and oh my to have a voice that could hold all of that and then bring it to the people and slam it to the floor, and stomp it to nothing. It was perhaps the greatest performance of any song I will hear in my lifetime. It was Kaddish, it was baptism, it was battle and it was victory. One song.
Among the things that moved me so much that night about Natalie was that she was coming to the stage with her own devil to stomp, with great humility, with an utterly true an honest presence. Her song was not about atonement, it was atonement, it was redemption, there to drink in like a gift.
She is a great artist, and she has put her soul out there in ways that most artists talk about, or strive for. I have heard Natalie sing just that one song live, and yet she tops my list of not just singers, but of artists who share themselves in any medium. She is to me, for all time, a hero, and utterly unforgettable.
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