KWKH Christmas Classic of the Day Dec. 6-The Christmas Song, Nat King Cole

Each day in December, until and including Christmas Day, I'll have a different Christmas Classic Song for you to enjoy!

Nat King Cole was a smoker of Kool menthol cigarettes, believing that smoking up to three packs a day gave his voice the rich sound it had.

Cole would smoke several cigarettes in rapid succession before a recording.

He died from lung cancer on February 15, 1965, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.

Cole was inducted into both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

In 1990, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1997 was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Cole's youngest brother, Freddy Cole, and Cole's daughter Natalie are also singers. In the summer of 1991, Natalie Cole and her father had a hit when Natalie's own newly-recorded voice track was mixed with her father's 1961 rendition of "Unforgettable" into a new duet version as part of a tribute album to her father's music. The song and album of the same name won seven Grammy awards in 1992.