Word: ahbez
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...idol, Earl ("Fatha") Hines. Cole became a strong force in jazz, influenced the styles of such greats as Bill Evans, Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson. The event that helped turn him permanently into a singer was the unlikely appearance in 1948 of a bearded, barefoot hermit-songwriter named Eden Ahbez, who smuggled one of his songs to Cole through his valet. It was called Nature Boy, and Cole's haunting version of it became a runaway bestseller. He soon broke up his trio to charges of "artistic sellout" by the jazz critics. "Critics," countered Cole, "don't buy records...
...told him it sounded too much like a "funeral dirge or a college hymn." (Actually, its opening sounded more like the first few steps of When Johnny Comes Marching Home.) He kept plugging, finally recorded Riders and some of his others at his own expense. Then Nature Boy Eden Ahbez (TIME, May 3, 1948) sandaled into the act. He heard Riders and liked it. The song had hair on its chest, and would be hard to croon with mush in the mouth. Ahbez took the music to Burl Ives, who quickly recorded it for Columbia. By the time Bing Crosby...
Born. To eden ("only God and the Infinite should be capitalized") ahbez, 36, bearded Hollywood yoga, whose recent attempt at songwriting netted him Nature Boy and a potential $20,000, and anna jacobson ahbez, thirtyish, vegetarian mystic : their first child, a son; in Los Angeles. Name: tatha. Weight...
...deliberately foolish-looking band leader called Red Ingle (real name: Ernest Jansen). It all began, he says, when he and his band, the Natural Seven, were playing in a Los Angeles nightclub. One night his vocalist, Karen Tedder, complained that if she had to sing Eden Ahbez' Nature Boy once again, she would go mad. To prove her point, she went into a wacky burlesque of it. "Well," said Red, "sing it that way." She did; and every night the boys put in a few more burps and barks. When they decided to record it, they picked out "instruments...
...radio program in action, We the People. It looked worse than it sounded. A guest named Evil-Eye Finkle made evil eyes at the camera; Mrs. Spencer Tracy fastened her eyes to the script; Fred Allen mostly looked glum; Nat ("King") Cole sang Nature Boy and Composer Eden Ahbez showed his curls. Master of Ceremonies Dwight Weist went his own way, all but ignoring the prying eye of the telecamera...