THE SHIT THAT HAPPENS

Eden Ahbez and Nat King Cole

This morning a friend was over and we were shooting the shit about coincidences. I was telling him about an incident that happened about ten years ago. I needed to check the spelling of a word and grabbed a dictionary that was fairly large (but not one of those mammoth ones that sit open all the time on the side table in the study to make the owner look smart). Oh yeah, before you ask, I'll tell you that when a dictionary is readily available and you grew up without the internet, it doesn't occur to you to check spelling online. So, I pick up the dictionary and open it. Without flipping a page I looked down and my thumb had landed on the word I was looking up. It spooked me. So I told him about that leading up to something that happened last night.

Ahbez and Frank Sinatra

Last night I was thinking about posting a version of "Nature Boy" that I particularly liked (it's been recorded a zillion times). I knew that I'd seen it at Office Naps, a blog that hasn't been updated since 2019. So I go there and realize that they don't have a search box on the blog. Shit. It had been a while since I saw the song posted there so I had to figure out how to find it. They had a drop down menu to check out the old posts listed by month, posts that go back to 2006. Before wigging out about the task ahead I clicked on a random month and it went to, you guessed it, the "Nature Boy" post. First click. I'll be damned.

Ahbez and Brian Wilson, 1967

So, I'm telling my friend about that and, I am not shitting you, in the middle of me telling him, Ulysses Owens Jr.'s version of "Nature Boy" came on the radio. Even after last night's incident I was second guessing whether I should post the song, but after the second nudge by fate, I'm not questioning it.

"Nature Boy" is a song I've posted before. It's a song that won't leave me alone. The first time I heard it was after buying my Mom a Nat King Cole cassette. I had no idea that any song on the tape had any significance for her, I just knew that when we were kids she would play a Nat King Cole Christmas album. Anyway, when I brought that tape to my Mom it was the first of the "Nature Boy" coincidences and rather then rehash the story, you can read about it here.



A quick rundown of the songwriter. Eden Ahbez wrote it. He was, well, a nature boy. A health food eating, back to nature hippie, replete with long hair and face feathers. This in the 1940s. He thought the song would be good for Nat King Cole so he showed up at one of his shows and handed it off to someone on Cole's staff. It ended up a hit, which is why my Mom knew it. (It came out when she was a teenager.) That's a very short version of the Ahbez story. His whole story is worth a longer read and there are links below. His story is trippy and worth reading up on.

Most versions of "Nature Boy" are pretty straight forward vocal numbers, sometimes with strings or big bands.The version that I sought out last night is by Etta Jones, I dig it because it's more rhythmic, somehow more real than the . Cole's OG is down there too, as well as David Bowie's and two others. Bowie does it up, the dramatic ending and fade out take up a third of the songs length.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Etta Jones - Nature Boy mp3 at Office Naps
Nat King Cole - Nature Boy mp3 at Los Sueños de la Razón
David Bowie - Nature Boy mp3 at Moulin 1
Clete Grayson and the Thurston Trio, Nature Girl (Nature Boy) mp3 at Office Naps
Richard Barbary: Soul Machine, Nature Boy mp3 at Office Naps
Visit:
to nature boy, life needn't be capitalized by Pearl Rowe, Ahbez's sister in law - L.A. Times 1977
Eden's Island - A Eden Ahbez blog
Eden Ahbez at Office Naps