Поет Нэт Кинг Коул (Sings Nat King Cole)

THE ALBUM

20 Golden Greats is a compilation of Nat King Cole's best-known recordings, released in the 1970s on Capitol Records as part of a wave of retrospective collections that brought his work to new audiences in the rock and pop era. The album draws from Cole's peak Capitol years, gathering the polished, orchestrated pop-ballad recordings that defined his commercial prime — warm, unhurried vocals set against lush string arrangements, with occasional jazz inflections surviving from his earlier trio work. Tracks like "Unforgettable," "Mona Lisa," and "Ramblin' Rose" anchor the set as cornerstones of mid-century American popular song. As a standalone compilation it was aimed squarely at the mainstream market, and it succeeded: 20 Golden Greats charted strongly in the UK and performed well across European markets, reaching audiences who may have been too young to encounter the original singles on first release.

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ARTIST & RECORDING CONTEXT

Nat King Cole (1919–1965) began his career as a jazz pianist and trio leader before Capitol Records — which signed him in 1943 — steered him progressively toward orchestrated pop, a transition that made him one of the label's most commercially successful acts of the 1950s and early 1960s. The recordings gathered here span that Capitol period, with key arrangements by Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins responsible for much of the signature sound: rich brass underpinning, sweeping strings, and Cole's voice placed cleanly at the front of the mix. "Mona Lisa," which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1950, was recorded with arranger Les Baxter. "Stardust," one of the more jazz-adjacent entries on the compilation, shows the trio-era phrasing that Cole never entirely abandoned. The tracks were recorded at Capitol's studios in Hollywood across roughly a fifteen-year span, giving the album a stylistic consistency that belies its compilation origins.

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THIS PRESSING

This Soviet edition, issued on Melodiya under the title Поет Нэт Кинг Коул ("Sings Nat King Cole"), is a licensed pressing of 20 Golden Greats manufactured for distribution within the USSR. Melodiya's licensed releases of Western Capitol and EMI material were uncommon and carefully selected — Cole's music, with its emphasis on melody, restraint, and orchestral sophistication, sat well within the cultural parameters that allowed certain Western artists limited circulation in the Soviet market. The Cyrillic retitling and domestically produced sleeve replace the Capitol branding entirely, giving this edition a visual identity distinct from any Western pressing of the same compilation.

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COLLECTOR SIGNIFICANCE

Soviet Melodiya pressings of licensed Western pop and jazz material are sought after both by Cole collectors and by specialists in Eastern Bloc releases. The combination of scarce original pressings, distinctive Cyrillic presentation, and the broader collector interest in Melodiya's Western licensing catalogue makes this a genuinely unusual object — a mainstream American pop compilation repackaged for a market where its existence was far from guaranteed. Copies in good condition are not commonly found outside former Soviet states.

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TRACK HIGHLIGHTS

• "Unforgettable" — The 1951 recording with Nelson Riddle's orchestration; the track most associated with Cole's voice and the likely reason the compilation was approved for Soviet release given its melodic accessibility.
• "Mona Lisa" — Academy Award-winning recording from 1950, arranged by Les Baxter, and one of Cole's biggest-selling singles during his Capitol years.
• "Stardust" — One of the set's closer connections to Cole's jazz trio roots, with phrasing that sits looser against the arrangement than the more polished ballads.
• "Ramblin' Rose" — A 1962 country-inflected outlier on the compilation, showing the commercial range Capitol pursued with Cole in his final years.