eden ahbez – Simple Pleasures part 4 (2024)

This is my favourite couplet from any song – and how come my philosophy on life is derived from George Benson.

I first came across the song ‘Nature Boy’ on the record ‘In Flight’ by jazz guitarist Benson. In time it emerged that it was a cover of Nat King Cole. In more time I became aware that it was written by someone called Eden Ahbez (who I’d never heard of). He turned out to be a proto-hippy and a very interesting character whose extraordinary story gave rise to this fascinating photo:

The dapper Cole and the Jesus-like Ahbez came to coincide in the wake of Ahbez pushinga dirty, rolled-up manuscript ontoMort Ruby, Cole’s manager, backstage atthe Lincoln Theater, LA. On it was a tune and these words:

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return

Beautiful simplicity – as has that fantastic closing couplet.

This happened shortly after World War Two, in 1947. Ahbez at the time was of no fixed abode and unemployed.Cole liked the song and began playing itlive to audiences. In 1948 he recorded it but before the recording could be released Ruby needed to track down its writer to secure the rights.

Ahbez was eventually discovered living just belowthe first L of the Hollywood sign with his family. Theyslept under the night sky. Ahbezate vegetables, fruits and nuts. He had shoulder-length hair and a beard, woresandals and white robes. He studied Easternmysticismand claimed to live on $3a week.

‘Nature Boy’ became a No. 1 hit in the US Billboard charts for eight consecutive weeks during the summer of 1948. That same year RKO Radio Pictures paid Ahbez $10,000 for the rights to the song to use it as the theme tunefor the movie ‘The Boy With Green Hair’.

Meanwhile he lived a proto-hippy life under the big L of Hollywood. Letters were significant for him. He actually called himself eden ahbez rather than Eden Ahbez as he reckonedonly the words “God” and “Infinity” merited capitalisation.

During the 30she lived in Kansas City and worked as a pianist and dance band leader. In 1941 he moved to LA where he got a gig playing piano in Eutropheon, a health food shop and raw food cafeon Laurel Canyon Boulevard, owned by John and Vera Richter. The Richters lived by a philosophy based on ‘Lebensreform’ (Life Reform) and the notion of the ‘Naturmensch’ (Nature Man) which was derived from the ‘Wandervogel’ (Wandering Bird) back-to-nature movement in Germany.

ahbez became part of a California-based group known as the ‘Nature Boys’, prominent among whom was Gypsy Boots (Robert Bootzin). Bootzin is another fascinating character, a hippy decades ahead of the 60s counterculture, with shared elements of ahbez’s background.

Bootzin was born in San Franciscoto Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a broom salesman. His mother brought himand his four siblings up asvegetarian. She led the family on hikes in the Californian hills and fed the homeless with her black bread. In the wake of his older brother’s premature death from TB,Bootzin resolvedto pursue a healthy, natural lifestyle. He grew his hair long.By 1933 he had dropped out of high school and left home to wander the wilds of California with a group of fellowvagabonds. In the 40she lived off the land with a dozenother Nature Boys in Tahquitz Canyon near Palm Springs, CA. They slept in caves and trees, and bathed in waterfalls. Long hair and beards were the order of the day.

Henceahbez’s Jesus hair and beard, and diet of raw fruits and vegetables. It was at this juncture that he adopted the name ‘eden ahbez’ (ahbe to his friends). He was actually born George Alexander Aberleon 15th April 1908. On subsequent adoption (1917) he becameGeorge McGrew. Then George became eden.

ahbez was originally of the East Coast not West. He was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish father and a Scottish-English motherbut spent his early years in the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. He was then adopted at the age of 9 by the McGrew family ofChanute, Kansas.

How much of the life of eden ahbez is self-mythologising is difficult to gauge.He claimed to have crossed the U.S.A. on foot eight times by the time he was35. He settled in L.A., married Anna Jacobsen, with whom he slept in a sleeping bag in Griffith Park. They had a son, Tatha. The familycontinuedliving out under the stars, with justa pushbike, sleeping bags and a juicer.ahbez was to be seen on Hollywood street corners sharing gems of Easternmysticism.

Having been handed the scruffy ‘Nature Boy’manuscript via Ruby, Cole recognised the underlying melody in the song as Yiddish. He decided to add it to his repertoirebecause he wanted a Jewish song forhis act (presumably good for capturing that particular constituency). Colerecorded ‘Nature Boy’ on 22nd August 1947 with an arrangement by Frank DeVol and apiano part written by Cole played by Buddy Cole (Edwin LeMar Cole, no relation).

Despite Capitol releasing ‘Nature Boy’as a B side, its quality overcame record company cluelessnessto quickly hit the #1 spot. Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and others rushed out cover versions and it remains a much covered song, from David Bowie to John Coltrane, from Ella Fitzgerald to Bobby Darin.

ahbez’s relationship to the greenback seems to have been an awkward one. Once ‘Nature Boy’ became a hit, the publishers and composer (Herman Yablokoff) of the Yiddish song ‘Schwieg Mein Hertz’ (‘Shvayg Mayn Harts’/ ‘Be Still My Heart’) claimedthat the melody of‘Nature Boy’ came from their song and sued, subsequently settling out of court with ahbez for a whopping $25,000. ahbez said he had“heard the tune in the mist of the California mountains.” Prior to this, when Ruby and Cole had eventually tracked him down under the L, it turned out that ahbez had given variouspeople different shares of the publishing rights so he ended up with pretty muchbig fat zero. The happy ending though is that after Nat ‘King’ Cole died in 1965, his wife eventually gave all the rights back to its creator ahbez.

In the wake of ‘Nature Boy’ ahbez continued to write songs for Cole, including ‘Land of Love’ (covered by Doris Day and The Ink Spots).In the mid 50s he suppliedsongs toEartha Kitt, Frankie Laine and others. His composition‘Lonely Island’ was recorded by Sam Cooke in 1957, hissecond and final tuneto makethe Top 40.

He collaboratedwith jazz singer-songwriterHerb Jeffries, in 1954 releasing the LP ‘The Singing Prophet’ including ahbez’s 4-part ‘Nature Boy Suite’. In 1959 he startedrecording his own distinctive brand of instrumental music. He could be seen in beatnik coffeehouses around LA performingon bongos and flute as accompaniment to beat poetry.

In 1960 (thanks to the prompting of Bob Keane, boss of Del-Fi Records) he cuthis only solo record, ‘Eden’s Island’ – “the first ever psychedelic pop classic” according to my pal Doug, and he knows his sh*t. It combinesbeat poetry with off-beat jungle exotica arrangements. ahbez promoted the LPby making personal appearances on a coast-to-coast walking tour. (He recordedanother similar album, ‘Echoes from Nature Boy’, againcontaining his poems set tomusic, which was released posthumously.)

He pops up in various places during the actual Hippy era. Grace Slick, later of Jefferson Airplane, then of The Great Society, covered ‘Nature Boy’ in 1966. Early the next year ahbez was photographed in the studio with Brian Wilson during one of the ‘Smile’sessions. Later in ’67 Britain’s very ownpsychedelic pioneer Donovan tracked downahbez in Palm Springs and the two like-minds communed.

ahbez had his fair share of personal tragedy. His wife Anna died relatively young (47) of leukemia (in 1963). His son, Zoma (originally namedtatha om ahbez) drowned as a 22 year old (in1971). He himself met an ironically unnatural death at the sharp metallic end of an automobile, succumbing to the injuries sustained in theaccident in LA on 4th March 1995. He was86. The fruit and veg had agreed with him.

On the subject of fruit,ahbez said he once told a cop who was hassling him for his shaggy appearance:“I look crazy but I’m not. And the funny thing is that other people don’t look crazy but they are.”