Here’s Brian Williams’ daughter doing a live mashup of “Nature Boy” with the Mad Men theme song.
Hear my remix, electronica arrangement, whatever you want to call it, with beats from Duke Ellington and Ol Dirty Bastard:
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mp3 download, ipod format download
Moulin Rouge! opens with Ewan McGregor’s character singing “Nature Boy.” Here’s the David Bowie version from the soundtrack album:
“Nature Boy” was first recorded by Nat King Cole in 1948 — it was a huge hit for him.
My favorite version is by the John Coltrane quartet. Coltrane takes the mood from wistful to apocalyptic.
There’s also a beautiful voice and guitar duet version by Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass.
“Nature Boy” wasn’t written by a Tin Pan Alley guy in a suit. It was written by this person:
Wikipedia informs me:
eden ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle in Brooklyn, New York on April 15, 1908; died March 4, 1995) was an American songwriter and recording artist from the 1940s-1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential on the hippie movement… Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes. He camped out below the first L in the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles, studied Oriental mysticism, and claimed to live on three dollars a week, sleeping outdoors with his family, and eating vegetables, fruits, and nuts.
In 1941 he arrived in Los Angeles and began playing piano in the Eutropheon [!], a small health food store and raw food restaurant on Laurel Canyon Blvd. The cafe was owned by John and Vera Richter, German immigrants who followed a “naturmensch” and “lebensreform” philosophy influenced by the Wandervogel movement in Germany. Their followers, known as “Nature Boys” and who included Robert “Gypsy Boots” Bootzin, wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits and vegetables.
In 1947, at the prompting of radio host Cowboy Jack Patton, he approached Nat “King” Cole‘s manager backstage at the Lincoln Theatre in Los Angeles and handed him the music for his song “Nature Boy”. Cole began playing the song for live audiences to much acclaim but needed to track down its author before releasing his recording of it. Ahbez was discovered living under the Hollywood Sign and became the focus of a media frenzy when Cole’s version of “Nature Boy” shot to #1 on the Billboard charts and remained there for eight consecutive weeks during the summer of 1948.
The melody of “Nature Boy” can be clearly heard in multiple passages from Antonin Dvorák‘s “Piano Quintet No. 2 in A, Opus 81” (1887).
I like the idea of ahbez’s Dvorák remix making its way into the insane mashup of Moulin Rouge! That’s a lot of recursion.
Here’s my mashup of the Nat King Cole, John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald versions of “Nature Boy” with pieces of the Dvorák piece. Enjoy.
Nature Boy megamix by ethanhein