Natalie Cole announced her marriage to her producer, Reverned Marvin Yancey Jr. today (February 14, 1977).
The pair married in secret the previous year, on July 31, 1976. Natalie Cole and Marvin Yancey Jr. met in the fall of 1974, during an auditioned.
Natalie Cole, daughter of singer Nat “King” Cole, said that she fell in love with Yancey because of his musical abilities. He was also the lead singer of The Independents, who hit big with the single “Leaving Me.”
“I fell in love with the way Marvin played the piano and we could feel this special feeling for each other,” Natalie Cole said in an interview in March 1977.
The pair’s musical chemistry in the studio was great, and immediately produced a hit single for Natalie Cole titled “This Will Be.”
But they also had a rocky relationship. In fact, both artists were engaged to other people when they decided to get married.
“I lived with several men in the past, but with Marvin it was different. Then again, I guess I’m basically old-fashioned. Mother raised me to be a good girl. I knew if Marvin and I would be together it would have to be as my husband.”
Natalie Cole and Marvin Yancy Jr. were officially married while driving down Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive in the backseat of an Eldorado.
Yancey (who was a minister) was on his way to conduct a funeral, and Cole had to catch a plane to Los Angeles, so the couple got a minister friend to perform the ceremony, as his wife drove.
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