Single:
Nature Boy entered the Australian singles chart* in October 1948 and peaked at #4. It was #35 on the Top 100 of 1948.
Album:
The song later appeared on the 1961 album The Nat King Cole Story.
Songwriter:
Eden Ahbez
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About. This is from a time before actual Top 40 charts existed. Australian Chart Book notes that chart stats are extrapolated from ‘Hit Parade’ radio programs of the era.
Wikipedia:
Nature Boy was written by Eden Ahbez; the lyrics relate to a 1940s Los Angeles–based group called Nature Boys, a subculture of proto-hippies of which Ahbez was a member.
The song was first recorded by American singer Nat King Cole, helping to establish his solo career and introducing him to the white music market.
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.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Boy
Songfacts – more about Eden Ahbez:
Nature Boy was written by Eden Ahbez, one of the strangest songwriters of the pre-hippie era. He was a beatnik poet, but more accurately a proto-hippie, choosing to wear long hair, a full beard and long, white, flowing garments that promoted a Christ-like appearance. He lived in Griffith Park in Los Angeles and ate fruit, vegetables and nuts. Ahbez was born in Brooklyn in 1908, and he claimed to have been raised in an orphanage and to have crossed the US on foot eight times before age 35. He moved to Los Angeles in the ’40s, lived on $3 a week, and lectured on Hollywood street corners about Oriental mysticism.
Ahbez implored Nat King Cole’s manager to look at his manuscript of Nature Boy. Cole recognized the Yiddish melody, liked the lyrics and added it to his act. It was well received so Cole decided to record it. One problem: Cole and Capitol Records could not find Ahbez in order to secure the publishing rights. Finally they located Ahbez, camped beneath the first L in the “Hollywood” sign.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/nat-king-cole/nature-boy
Lyrics:
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
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