Oscar Brand
| Oscar Brand | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 7, 1920 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada |
| Died | September 30, 2016 (aged 96) Great Neck, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | Canadian-born naturalized U.S. citizen |
| Education | Brooklyn College |
| Employer | WNYC |
| Website | oscarbrand |
Oscar Brand (February 7, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter and author. In his career, spanning 70 years, he composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs. Brand's music ran the gamut from novelty songs to serious social commentary and spanned a number of genres. He also wrote a number of short stories.
Brand was born to a Jewish family in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His father was a Romanian-born flooring contractor, Isidore Brand. His mother was named Beatrice. In 1927, the family moved to Minneapolis, then to Chicago and ultimately to New York City. As a young man, Oscar lived in the Borough Park, Brooklyn and graduated from Erasmus Hall High School and later from Brooklyn College.
In his long career he played alongside such legends of folk music as Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Jean Ritchie, The Weavers and Pete Seeger. He wrote various books on the folk song and folk song collections including The Ballad Mongers: Rise of the American Folk Song, Songs Of '76: A Folksinger's History Of The Revolution and Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads, the latter comprising four volumes.
Brand is well known for having composed catchy, themed, folk songs, including the eponymous theme to his initially CTV and then CBC television show "Let's Sing Out" and the Canadian patriotic song "Something to Sing About" (actual title: "This Land of Ours"), which is one of Canada's national songs. He was also a frequent performer at the Mariposa Folk Festival during this period, including performances in 1962, 1968, 1969, and 1987, as well as the 50th anniversary in 2010. He collaborated on a number of musicals, most notably The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (a musical version of Leo Rosten's stories about the fictional Jewish character Hyman Kaplan), How to Steal an Election, and A Joyful Noise.
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