Natalie Cole Releases Spanish Album And Tells The Incredible Story Of Why She Now Feels Latina

Having a near death experience only gave Natalie Cole a new found passion for life.

"When you've had an illness and you've been close to death, life and love must take you in a new direction," says the singer, 63, who describes in her book Love Brought Me Back (Simon & Schuster) how a family from El Salvador saved her life in 2009, by donating a kidney that she so desperately needed.

The singer, who suffered from Hepatitis C, and is now in good health pays tribute to her father, the icon Nat King Cole, by singing the same ballad as the crooner did in the 50s in Spanish, "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas". Her new album, entitled Natalie Cole in Spanish (Verve / Universal Music), will be released on June 25 and includes duets with Juan Luis Guerra and Andrea Bocelli, among many other surprises.

According to Cole, the fact that the woman who donated her kidney was a Salvadoran called Jessica who died from a heart attack at 32 years of age while eight months pregnant with a child who survived, now makes her part hispanic.

"They mean a lot to me," says Cole of the Salvadoran family's donation. "Every day I give thanks. They are friendly people, very sweet and humble. "

Cole says that it was her nurse Esther, Jessica's aunt, who persuaded the family to donate the organ when she died unexpectedly.

"A Latino person donated her kidney and she now feels Latino," says Cuban music producer Rudy Perez about Cole, who produced this album. "She remembers how her dad used to sing those songs at home when she was a child and she said, "Rudy, now that I am a latina because I have a latino organ in my body, I have to make this album." The record gathers together classic ballads like "Besame Mucho" and "Frenesí", among many others.

Today the artist finds pleasure in little things, like baking lemon cake in her home in Los Angeles or talking to her son Robert Adam Yancy, 35, who is a percussionist and plays in her band. "Everything I have, God has given me," says the singer, who admits to having had a spiritual awakening after the kindey transplant.

Natalie Cole in Spanish is the singer's twenty third studio effort and her very first in a foreign language. Cole has sold over thirty million albums since her debut in 1975.

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