The greatest thing you'll ever learn 
Is just to love
And be loved in return.

I just learned the most incredibly interesting backstory about “Nature Boy”, Nat King Cole’s first big hit.

George Alexander Aberle (1908-1995), known as eden ahbez, was a songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1970s, known to friends simply as ahbe.

In the late 40s, there was a rumor that there was a sort of hermit, disenchanted and disillusioned with the world, living in California in a cave under one of the Ls in the Hollywood sign.

No one really cared about this strange man until one night in 1947, he entered backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles where Nat King Cole was playing. The man said he had something for Cole and he gave whatever he had to Cole’s manager.

Later, Cole tracked him down in New York City [no explanation about how he got from LA to NYC]. When Cole asked him where he was staying, the man declared he was staying at the best hotel in New York – outside, literally, in Central Park.

He said his name was eden ahbez (spelled all in lower-case letters). The song he gave Cole was titled “Nature Boy.” It became Cole’s first big hit, and was soon covered by other artists through the years; Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, and Lady Gaga.

The media went crazy about the mysterious man who handed Nat King Cole one of the biggest hits. Everyone tried to find out more about him.

What little they found was that he was once an orphan who never stayed at one place very long, living in various foster homes. He explained he just never fit in and was always searching for something.

“They say he wandered very far…Very far, over land and sea…”

They found out he would hop freight trains and walked across country several times, subsisting solely on raw fruits and vegetables.

“A little shy and sad of eye…But very wise was he…”

ahbez would eventually get his message out when the hippie movement began, with other artists such as Donovan, Grace Slick, and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson sought him out. He also wrote songs for Eartha Kitt and had another song recorded by Sam Cooke.

IIn 1974, ahbez was reported to be living in the Los Angeles suburb of Sunland. He owned a record label named Sunland Records, recording under the name “Eden Abba.” From the late 1980s until his death, ahbez worked closely with Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles. The master tapes, photos, and final works of eden ahbez are in Romersa’s possession.

Ahbez died in 1995 at the age of 86, of injuries sustained in a car accident.

(Wiki has a lot more info about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_ahbez
Info curated from https://www.facebook.com/sunsetblvdrecordsstory of eden ahbez)

It’s a crazy story but a hauntingly beautiful song!

Nature Boy
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far
Over land and sea

A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
One magic day he passed my way
And while we spoken of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me

The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved in return

And then one day
One magic day he passed my way
And while we spoken of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return