He took the chart to Nat King Cole’s manager backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. A likely apocryphal story has Johnny Mercer recommending ahbez to Cole, however it happened, Cole ended up with the tune. In 1947, ahbez composed “Nature Boy” having set one of his poems to music. There, ahbez would sometimes play piano and read poetry. He studied mysticism, ate vegetables, fruits and nuts and claimed to live on just three dollars per week. A group of like-minded young men took up residence in Laurel Canyon near the Eutropheon Café, a small health food store and raw food restaurant owned by the Richters, a German couple. He camped out under the first “L” in the Hollywood sign. wearing white robes, sandals and long hair and a longer beard. A very strange enchanted boy.” The story of the song “Nature Boy” was also very strange indeed. Its author, eden ahbez, who insisted that his name not be capitalized as no human was worthy of capitalization, died in Palm Springs at the age of 86 after having wandered very far, very far indeed.īorn in Brooklyn, ahbez wandered up and down California, living outside under the stars.
