George Alexander Aberle, better known as eden ahbez (April 15, 1908 – March 4, 1995), was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement. He was known to friends simply as Ahbe.
Ahbez was inspired by an early hippie named William Pester and wrote a song about him. Ahbez composed the song Nature Boy, which became a No. 1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat "King" Cole. 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 and studied Oriental mysticism. He slept outdoors with his family and ate vegetables, fruits, and nuts. He claimed to live on three dollars per week.[1]
Ahbez was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish father and a Scottish-English mother, and spent his early years in the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York. He was then adopted from the orphan train in 1917 by a family in Chanute, Kansas, and given the name George McGrew.
He had a twin sister, Editha, who was also adopted by the McGrews. She kept the name McGrew. He married Anna Jacobson in Los Angeles in 1948.
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Categories: Singer-Songwriters | Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California | Notables