Eden Ahbez - Eden Island

Eden Ahbez - Eden Island

Verdict: 5/5
Label

Del-Fi Records

CATALOG NO

DFLP-1211

RELEASE DATE

1960

Written By

Dragos Rusu

Published

January 13, 2015

''The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.''

In modern times likes the ones we live in, a guy with a Jesus look, long hair, beard, wearing sandals and modest clothes, dressed in robes, who walks through the crowded boulevards, riding a bicycle, all this might be a really good picture. But let’s go back. Way back.

At the beginning of the 20-century, Los Angeles wasn’t a proper city yet. When eden ahbez came from Brooklyn to L.A., he was 35 years old. He claimed to have been raised in an orphanage, and have crossed the U.S. on foot eight times by the age of 35. In L.A., ahbez married Anna Jacobsen, claimed to have survived as a vegetarian on three dollars a week, and stood on street corners in Hollywood, lecturing on various Oriental forms of mysticism.

Ahbez is the composer of ‘’Nature Boy’’, one of the most covered songs ever, by almost any musician. Ahbez passed the song to Nat King Cole, who liked it so much, that eventually recorded it. It became a number 1 hit for eight weeks in 1948, for Nat "King" Cole, and has since become a pop and jazz standard.

ahbez was part of a proto-hippie Californian movement known as "Nature Boys", who included Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits and vegetables and practice yoga, meditation and an environmental conservation. Despite the attention ahbez brought the Nature Boys, they themselves often lived the lives of hermits, traveling the hills, taking up houses in trees and caves. It is being said that Eden himself slept under the first L of the Hollywood sign. You can find out more on the Nature Boys HERE.

eden ahbez's friend Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles, got the chance to meet him closely, in the last seven years of ahbez’s life and documented everything he learnt and experienced from the enlightening encounter with this strange genius totally ahead of his time; so ahead, that he was out of sync with the world. Joe wrote a book about ahbez’s work and published fragments on his own Shadowboxstudio website. It totally worth checking it out. Readers will discover many stories on ahbez, including the one with the correction of the lyrics for his autobiographical song, ‘Nature Boy’. He said "To be loved in return, is too much of a deal, and there's no deal in love." He said it should read.."The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love, and be loved."

Eden’s Island evokes a fascinating and mystic world, yet so simple for the modern human being to totally understand it. Hearing this album it feels like ahbez speaks about a utopic world and way of living that just doesn’t exists. But when you look up at his biographical information, you realize that he actually wrote about himself, about his life, his spirit, one that he truly believed in. In his world, all men are brothers and everyone lives their life in a simple and non-materialistic way. The world enjoys the music, the food, the peace and people adulate the moon and the sun. Comparing to ahbez’s beguiling universe, we nowadays live in a fast and superficial world, where material things take the most important place in our lives. After listening to this album over and over again, I could ask myself when is the last time I actually tried to connect to nature? When is the last time I walked into a forest, resting on wild green grass, starring at the moon and the stars, camping out, and just connecting to the earth, to the nature? I do remember that, but it is definitely not that often as going out for snacks and beers.

So, if there’s a message inside this exceptional and inimitable album, maybe its love for and beneath humanity, and love and care for Mother Nature. Let it breath.

I am the wind, the sea, the evening star
I am everyone
anyone
no one.


In 2012, the Swiss record label Moi J'Connais Records repressed this album originally released in 1960, adding "Surf Rider", an unreleased track from the original session, for the first time on vinyl.

Tracklist:

A1. Eden's Island
A2. The Wanderer
A3. Myna Bird
A4. Eden's Cove
A5. Tradewind
A6. Full Moon
B1. Mongoose
B2. Market Place
B3. Banana Boy
B4. The Old Boat
B5. Island Girl
B6. La Mar