Lest the obvious need restating—everybody loves a character. It’s likely that few fit that description in Hollywood’s record biz history better than EDEN AHBEZ, the man who penned one of pop-song’s most enduring pieces, “Nature Boy.” If not for the mountain of evidence confirming his life story, one wouldn’t be out of line thinking it…
Anna Ahbez (née Annette Jacobson) was, to her songwriter husband, a lover, a mother to his only child, and a fellow nature enthusiast. From 1946-68, Eden Ahbez commemorated Anna in more than a dozen songs, most of them still unreleased. But who was this mysterious woman that stood side-by-side with her nature boy husband at…
Eden Ahbez wrote nearly a thousand songs during his long lifetime. Less than a hundred, however, made their way to vinyl. During my twenty years researching Ahbez’s life and work, I’ve known about a song titled “Green Flamingo” for more than half that time. I’d previously thought, however, that it was never released. I’m happy to…
Larry “Chief” Boutillette owns Sunset Ranch in upstate New York. It was formerly owned by Cowboy Jack Patton—performer, Western radio personality and long-time friend of Eden Ahbez. Patton took credit for many of the good things that happened to Ahbez with “Nature Boy,” though it’s been hard to verify all of his claims as yet.…
How Eden Ahbez got “Nature Boy” into the hands of Nat “King” Cole is one of the great mysteries in pop music history. Stories vary. Mythologies abound. Most, however, contain one or two common details. Notably, that a soiled lead-sheet was left unsigned, and that Cole’s management had to put out a search to find its…
For those who haven’t seen it yet, an interview with Eden Ahbez from the early television program We the People was recently posted to YouTube. See it here: Though scripted, Ahbez’s words are effective, and seem to confirm what we know of his biography up to that point. In the clip, he also meets Nat…
For those inclined to 1950s proto-hippies, news of a documentary about Moondog—the great NYC composer, street busker and early counter-culture guru—is cause for celebration. See the link here. It is not known whether Eden and Moondog ever met, though Ahbez—during his stay in NYC in June 1948 to promote “Nature Boy”—wrote an unrecorded song titled “The…
I just discovered this website about the storied history of the old sign up on Mt. Lee: https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/tag/albert-kothe/ There’s a lot to weed through here, as the site’s host, Hope Anderson, recently made a documentary about the HOLLYWOOD sign, and is obviously one of its great historians. This particular link goes to an article that…
