Nat King Cole The Greatest Thing
Keesha Ondieki
"Nature Boy" was released during the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) ban of 1948. It reached the top of the Billboard music charts and sold over a million copies, helping to establish Cole's solo career, and introducing him to the white music market. "Nature Boy" was the subject of lawsuits, with Yiddish composer Herman Yablokoff claiming that it was plagiarized from his song "Shvayg mayn harts" (שװײג מײן האַרץ, "Be Still My Heart"). Eventually, ahbez and Yablokoff settled out of court. In 1999, the song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
Following Cole's success, rival record companies released cover versions of "Nature Boy" by other artists including Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan, which were also successful. It ultimately became a pop and jazz standard, with many artists interpreting the song, including Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, who recorded it for their collaborative album Cheek to Cheek (2014). It was also used in numerous films like The Boy with Green Hair, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge!, for which singer David Bowie recorded a version.
In 1941, a 33-year-old George McGrew arrived in Los Angeles and began playing piano in the Eutropheon, a small health food store and raw food restaurant on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The caf was owned by John and Vera Richter, who followed a Naturmensch (nature person) and Lebensreform (life reform) philosophy influenced by the Wandervogel (Wandering Bird) movement in Germany.[3][4][5][6] Their followers, known as "Nature Boys", wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits and vegetables. McGrew adopted the philosophy and chose the name "eden ahbez", writing and spelling his name with lower-case letters.[7] It was there, while living in a cave near Palm Springs, that ahbez wrote "Nature Boy". Partly autobiographical, the song was a tribute to his mentor Bill Pester, who had originally introduced him to Naturmensch and Lebensreform.[8]
In 1947, at the prompting of Cowboy Jack Patton and Johnny Mercer, ahbez approached Nat King Cole's manager backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles, handed him a tattered copy of "Nature Boy", and asked him to show it to Cole. However, his pleas were ignored and a disappointed ahbez left the sheet music of "Nature Boy" with Cole's valet, Otis Pollard.[9] From him, Cole learned of the song and loved it. Cole began playing "Nature Boy" for live audiences, and received much acclaim. Irving Berlin, who was present during one of the performances, offered to buy the track from Cole, but Cole decided to record it himself.[10] He needed permission from ahbez, however, before releasing it as a single, but he was unable to find the songwriter since ahbez had disappeared without providing any contact details.[11] After ahbez was discovered living under the Hollywood Sign, Cole got his permission.
Instrumentalist Chris Tyle noted that the lyrics are a musical self-portrait of ahbez, with the lines like "There was a boy, A very strange, enchanted boy, They say he wandered very far, Very far, over land and sea". But he believed that it was the song's last line that made it the most poignant: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, Is just to love and be loved in return".[15] Various interpretations of the line are given by academics, with the eponymous nature boy being a child, advising on love and relationship, or an adult hippie talking about his journey and inner-love. According to author Jeffery P. Dennis, the song presented a homo-romantic theme, with the eponymous nature boy visiting Cole on a "magic day" and explaining that "the greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return".[16] Author Raymond Knapp described the track as a "mystically charged vagabond song" whose lyrics evoked an intense sense of loss and haplessness, with the final line delivering a universal truth, described by Knapp as "indestructible" and "salvaged somehow from the perilous journey of life".[17]
According to Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles, to whom ahbez bequeathed master tapes, photos, and final works,[18] ahbez wanted a correction made to the lyrics saying "To be loved in return, is too much of a deal, and there's no deal in love.", and that instead it should read "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love, and be loved." Romersa has stated that, because these lyrics did not fit with the original ending melody, ahbez re-wrote it.[19]
The 1940s American music market was divided by race, and for a black artist to cross over to mainstream pop music was difficult. Author Krin Gabbard noted in his book, Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema, that Cole had to wear white makeup while filming for the performance of the song.[25] Although he had come into prominence in 1940 as a leader of the jazz trio named King Cole Trio, it was with "Nature Boy" that he received widespread recognition, and it was his rendition that appealed to the white audience.[10]
Cole would later use the success of the song to disband the trio in order to pursue a solo recording career.[26] He once described "Nature Boy" as one of his favorite recordings.[27][28] The success of the song allowed ahbez to accumulate about US$20,000 ($253,629 in 2023 dollars[29]) in royalties.[11] However, Billboard reported that ahbez kept only 50% of the royalty for himself, and distributed the rest among people who had helped bring the song into the limelight. About 25% was shared with Mrs. Loraine Tatum for helping him with the lyrics, and the rest with Pollard, for bringing the song to Cole's notice.[21]
"Nature Boy" has received wide acclaim from critics and contemporary reviewers. Author Ted Gioia noted in his book, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, that all the musicians "who had created the golden age of American popular song had their quirks and idiosyncrasies, but eden ahbez demands pride and place as the most eccentric of them all". He added that, along with promoting the hippie culture, with "Nature Boy", ahbez and Cole were able to introduce a new era for black artists in white popular music.[30] In his book, Sinatra! the Song is You: A Singer's Art, author Will Friedwald complimented Cole's version, saying that it had been the "startingly fresh" combination of the singer's vocals along with the string section, which had made "Nature Boy" a hit.[20] Stephen Cook from AllMusic said that the song transformed Cole into "one of the most famous and beloved pop singing stars of the postwar years".[31] Billboard noted that such was the popularity of the song that audiences would only stay in theaters to see Cole perform "Nature Boy", and leave once he finished.[32] A 1975 poll by the magazine listed it as the "Greatest All-Round Record" as well as the "Favorite Pop Recording" of the previous years.[33] In 1999, the song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame, a special Grammy Award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance".[34] Novelist Steve Erickson in Los Angeles magazine gave a detailed positive review of the song:
Yiddish theatre composer Herman Yablokoff claimed in his biography, Memoirs of the Yiddish Stage, that the melody to "Nature Boy" was plagiarized from his song "Shvayg mayn harts" ("Hush My Heart"), which he wrote for his play Papirosn (1935).[36] When met with a lawsuit in 1951 for the plagiarization, ahbez first proclaimed his innocence, and telephoned Yablokoff to explain that he "had heard the melody as if angels were singing it... in the California mountains. He offered me $10,000 to withdraw the suit. I said that the money was not important, but I wanted him to admit that the song was geganvet [stolen]; and if he heard angels, they must have bought a copy of my song." Eventually ahbez's lawyers offered to have an out-of-court settlement, offering $25,000 ($293,462 in 2023 dollars[29]) to Yablokoff, which he accepted.[13][37] Freidwald remarked that "it struck no one as ironic that a song with message of love and peace should come to symbolize how cutthroat the pop music business was becoming".[20]
The success of "Nature Boy" soon led to the release of a number of cover versions of the track. However, due to the AFM ban, other record companies could not release full versions with strings, only a cappella tracks.[20] Following Cole's version of "Nature Boy", the Dick Haymes recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 24439. The record first appeared on the Billboard charts on June 4, 1948, and peaked at number 11.[22]
Frank Sinatra also recorded a musicianless version, which was his only recording during the ban. Sinatra's version of "Nature Boy" replaced the string sounds of the original recording with a choir conducted by Jeff Alexander, which, according to Friedwald, made the song sound like a Gregorian chant.[20] The recording was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 38210. It debuted on the Billboard charts on May 28, 1948, and peaked at number seven.[22] Sinatra later performed the song on the radio show, Your Hit Parade, accompanied by a choir and orchestral arrangement.[20] RCA Records planned to release versions by singers Perry Como and Bing Crosby, but they were subsequently cancelled due to the ban. Musicraft Records released Sarah Vaughan's a cappella version on April 8, 1948. It was a commercial success, selling 20,000 copies on the first day and peaking at number 11 on the Billboard chart.[21] A parody named "Serutan Yob" was recorded by The Unnatural Seven, an offshoot of Red Ingle and his Natural Seven that did not include Ingle due to the 1948 AFM recording ban. "Serutan Yob" featured vocals from Karen Tedder and Los Angeles DJ Jim Hawthorne. It was released by Capitol with catalog number 15210, reached the Billboard charts on October 1, 1948, and stayed there for a total of four weeks, peaking at number 24.[22][30]
c80f0f1006