Re: Nature Boy and Yiddish

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Lori Cahan-Simon wrote:

> I came across this interesting reference.  "Nature Boy" has always been
> one of my favorite songs and it turns out there is a Yiddish
> connection.  I don't think I know the song mentioned below, though.
> Mavens?

It was "copied" from =Shvayg, Mayn Harts= by Herman Yablokoff,
often billed as "the Yiddish Pagliacci" (sp?)
and composer of the immortal "Papirossen".

His biography says he settled for 25 Gs -- pretty good in those days,
considering Sholem Secunda parted with "Bei Mir Bistu Shayn" for 50 bucks
--although he was given some monies years later,
after the song became a world =shlager= for the Andrews Sisters.


Wolf Krakowski

>
>                         EDEN AHBEZ "Eden's Island: The Music Of An
> Enchanted Isle"
>
>           AMG: "One of the genuinely strange characters of pre-rock
> American popular music, Eden Ahbez's main
>         claim to fame was as the composer of "Nature Boy." The
> melodically and lyrically beguiling song was a huge
>          pop hit for Nat King Cole; it would be covered by many other
> reputable performers, including Frank Sinatra,
>            John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, and the Great Society (Grace
> Slick's pre-Jefferson Airplane band). But
>          Ahbez's current stature rests on a 1960 album that mixed
> exotica album and beatnik poetry. It rates as one of
>              the goofiest efforts in the goofy exotica genre ? and
> brother, that's saying something, given the stiff
>           competition. Ahbez boasted a resume as colorful and mysterious
> as his music. Born Alexander Aberle in
>           Brooklyn in the early 20th century, he changed his name in the
> 1940s shortly after moving to (where else?)
>             California. A hippie a good 20 years before his time, he
> cultivated a Christ-like appearance with his
>            shoulder-length hair and beard. He claimed to live on three
> dollars a week, sleeping outdoors with his
>          family, eating vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Ahbez's big
> success was getting Nat King Cole to record "Nature
>            Boy," after diligently pestering some of Cole's associates at
> the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles,
>            where Cole was performing. Some of the luster was taken off
> that triumph when a publishing company
>          claimed that Ahbez had taken some of the lyrics from "Nature
> Boy" from one of their copyrights, the Yiddish
>            song "Schweig Mein Hertz" (the parties reached an
> out-of-court settlement). Ahbez did manage to place
>           another tune with Cole, "Land of Love (Come My Love and Live
> with Me)." In the mid-'50s, he did some
>          recording with jazz musician Herb Jeffries; he also did some
> occasional composing and singing, sometimes
>           for rock & roll novelty records. His most comprehensive
> statement as a recording artist, however, was the
>               1960 LP The Music of an Enchanted Isle, which wedded
> Martin Denny-style exotica to Ahbez's
>         near-stereotypical beatnik poetry. Nat King Cole, for one,
> claimed that Ahbez's hippie-mystical image was no
>           act. That doesn't mean that his desert-island paradise trip
> doesn't sound darned silly today. It was ripe for
>            revival by space-age pop aficionados in the 1990s, however,
> and reissued on CD in 1995. Ahbez was
>           photographed with Brian Wilson in the studio in 1966, lending
> further credence to the theory that the head
>          Beach Boy was influenced by exotica during the Pet Sounds and
> Smile sessions. Ahbez died in 1995 after an
>                                               auto accident."
>

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