“Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole

"Unforgettable" came from the pen of Irving Gordon, who wrote the words and music alone and first called it "Uncomparable" until his publisher steered him to the title everybody knows. It was published in 1951, and that year Nat King Cole cut the version that outshone all the others, set in a Nelson Riddle arrangement, and made it the title song of his album Unforgettable.

He kept coming back to it: in 1961 he recorded it again in stereo, with Ralph Carmichael's orchestra playing Riddle's chart, for The Nat King Cole Story. Then in 1991, on an idea from Elvis Presley's musical director Joe Guercio, that first 1951 recording was reworked into a duet with his daughter Natalie Cole, who had long sung along to it on stage.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.