Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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BROWN, Oscar Jr

(b Oscar Cicero Brown Jr, 10 October 1926, Chicago IL; d 29 May 2005) Singer, songwriter. At age 15 he appeared on Studs Terkel's radio series Secret City. His first recorded composition was 'Brown Baby' by Mahalia Jackson. He dabbled in leftwing politics, was friends with playwright Lorraine Hansberry, whose husband Robert Nemiroff helped get Brown signed to Columbia in 1960 as a singer, mainly of his own work. He collaborated with Max Roach on his Freedom Now Suite (album We Insist! '60). He wrote lyrics for instrumental jazz tunes: 'Dat Dere' (by Bobby Timmons, becomes a song about young Oscar III's thirst for knowledge), 'All Blues' (Miles Davis), 'So Help Me' (Les McCann), 'One Foot In The Gutter' (Clark Terry) etc. He was MC of the TV series Jazz Scene USA '62. Sin And Soul '60 combined soul and theatre, reissued on a Columbia CD '97 with first-rate sidemen; unfortunately the producer hadn't let anybody solo. There was a quartet set on Fontana '64; he recorded for Atlantic '70s, and a duo with guitarist Luiz Henrique on Fontana.

He went back to Chicago and produced musical revues with his wife; a fan, Cork Marcheschi, tried to get permission to reissue earlier records, but major labels want to sit on everything like great spiders, so Marcheschi looked up Brown and recorded Then And Now '95 for his Weasel Disc label: good backing included Oscar III on bass and Marcheschi on piano, harp and theramin. The 16 tracks were half classics and half new tunes: 'Honeydo' about a harassed husband, 'Cyberspace Is The Place' about the Internet. The following year his son, Oscar Brown III, was killed in a car crash. Among his later honors was a statewide Oscar Brown Jr Day declared by the California state legislature.