Re: Nature Boy and Yiddish

[wiener <wiener...>]

Wolf,

Would you recommend a recording of Shvayg, Mayn Harts?

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Kame'a Media <media (at) kamea(dot)com>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2000 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: Nature Boy and Yiddish


>
>
>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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>