BRAND

Singer/songwriter Oscar Brand was born February 7, 1920 In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He moved to New York as a young man, graduated from Brooklyn College and immersed himself in the burgeoning folk music scene where he met (and played alongside) such legends as Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Josh White Sr., Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Theo Bikel and Alan Lomax.

Simultaneously with his songwriting and performing career, in 1945 Brand began hosting the WNYC public radio show Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival, which included appearances by Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Theo Bikel, Harry Belafonte, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Harry Chapin, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou Harris and many others. The show continues to be broadcast weekly, with an assist from Jean Ritchie’s son, Jon Pickow, and has become the longest running program in the history of American radio. In the early 1960s Brand also broadcast his CTV television program Let’s Sing Out from university campuses across Canada featuring Canadian artist Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot among others.

By 1952 he had a No. 1 hit with Doris Day’s recording of “A Guy Is A Guy” and “Burgundian Carol” was recorded by the Weavers. “When I First Came To This Land” became popular among folksingers and the text has appeared as a children’s book. His Canadian anthem “Something to Sing About” has become well known throughout Canada from the early ‘60s to this day. Recently he was honored with the Order of the Buffalo Hunt Award by the province of Manitoba.

Brand’s score for the popular 1968 Off-Broadway show How to Steal an Election sent up the current belief that charisma would help a candidate win. In the late ‘60s, Brand co-wrote two Broadway shows with Paul Nassau, A Joyful Noise and The Education of Hyman Kaplan. Another Oscar Brand musical Thunder Bay based on Robert Ardrey’s play Thunder Rock had a run in 1979 at the White Barn Theater in Connecticut.
The Kennedy Center 1976 bicentennial musical Sing America Sing was written and directed by Oscar who also performed in the show alongside John Raitt and other stars.

Other honors include serving on the board that created the Children’s Television Workshop, the genesis of Sesame Street. The character Oscar the Grouch is based on Mr. Brand who had some policy issues. In 1982, he won the Peabody Award for broadcast excellence for the NBC Sunday Show and shared the 1997 Personal Peabody Award with Oprah Winfrey. Founding director and long time board member of the National Academy of Popular Music and Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, he has received its Board of Directors highest award for distinguished service.

Oscar Brand is known for his wit as writer and performing artist on over 90 recordings with such wide ranging subjects as sports cars, the medical profession, pets and bawdy songs and ballads. As author his scholarship is evident in The Ballad Mongers, Songs of 76’/A Folksinger’s History of the Revolution and Singing Holidays.

For information about Oscar Brand including available recordings, please visit his website: www.oscarbrand.com.