Oscar Brand in Chicago Tribune
Marty Lick
in the Wednesday Dec 16th Chicago Tribune, Tempo section front page
talking about Oscar Brand. While it doesn't mention his songs that Dr.
D. has played on occasion, most notably "A Clean Song", it does mention
some other stuff he's done that I thought might be of interest to
someone here. The article is at
http://chicagotribune.com/splash/article/0,1051,SAV-9812160331,00.html
but it's here as well for your reading pleasure:
BALLADS AND BALLOTS:
By Adam Bernstein
Special to the Tribune
December 16, 1998
WASHINGTON -- Most political
candidates want you to look at their
records. Folk singer-songwriter Oscar
Brand hopes you'll buy his.
Brand, who during his 60-year performing
career played with Leadbelly and was the
namesake of Oscar the Grouch, is
rerecording and updating his 1952 album
"Election Songs of the United States." The
two-CD set, due in March or April, will be
marketed to the general public and schools
in connection with the 2000 presidential
race.
From "Follow Washington" to Bill Clinton's
1992 campaign theme, "Don't Stop
Thinking About Tomorrow," Brand wants
listeners to realize how presidential aspirants
always have used music to help compose
their public images. Or to malign their
opponents.
For a man who has dedicated his life to
"tweaking the nose of authority," Brand
does not believe he is literally playing into
the most established of establishments: the
mainstream political system. Instead, the
New York City-based performer said he is
exposing much of the ugliness of the political
past, such as when former President Millard
Fillmore in 1856 won the nomination of the
anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant American
(a.k.a. "Know-Nothing") Party.
"He believed the country was going
downhill because of aliens and immigrants
who didn't have that good, white
Anglo-Protestant background," said Brand,
who was born 78 years ago in Winnipeg,
Manitoba. "The essence of his campaign
was that he was going to save America.
Does that sound familiar?"
Brand also finds a musical trend in the use
of association, such as Herbert Hoover's
1928 song, "If He's Good Enough for Lindy
(He's Good Enough for Me)," which
features a racing tempo and lyrics:
Now you all remember Hoover, back in the
war
He saved us from the Kaiser now he'll give
us something more
He'll serve as the president of the land of
the free
If he's good enough for Lindy, he's good
enough for me.
Said Brand: "You get Charlton Heston to
support you. You get Lindbergh to support
you. You get heroes to say you're OK."
The selection of songs is not meant to be
cynical, he said, making the back-handed
compliment that most pols are "doing the
best they can" despite a system that values
compromises.
"It is amazing that with all these diverse
attitudes, we are still a united nation," he
said. "Politics is human behavior. The
system is a compromise. There have been
the same compromises. It's the same then
as it is now. . . . It's known as the reality
principle. How far it goes is the question."
Brand has lost some fights, such as when he
sat on the Children's Television Workshop
panel decades ago and battled for his vision
of what became "Sesame Street." The show
was supposed to grab the attention of
ghetto and underprivileged children. "I
fought for sloppy city streets, fought for
garbage cans on the front steps, and winos,"
he said.
His continual reminders to the panel about
the production's ghetto theme earned him
the nickname Oscar the Grouch. Still,
Brand spent many years as the host of
television specials and more than five
decades on New York public radio with
"The Folksong Festival," and he has never
stopped recording music.
He has made 95 recordings since 1948,
including 10 collections of bawdy songs.
Many of his original compositions combine
the unpretentious melodic quality of Hoagy
Carmichael with the dark social
commentary of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt
Weill.
Brand also has recorded campaign songs
before. A 1952 album featured him singing
to banjo and guitar accompaniment. On the
new CD, Brand will be backed by his
singer-bassist-guitarist son Jordan, a junior
at Harvard University, as well as
guitarist-singer John Foley and
banjoist-singer-synthesizer player Jon
Pickow, the son of renowned folk singer
Jean Ritchie.
The album will not cover every race but hit
key election years. For example, for the
race of 1840, many election taxes had been
abolished, signifying the "gradual
democratization of American politics,"
historian Paul F. Boller Jr. has written.
Because of that, William Henry Harrison,
who was perceived as the hero of the 1811
battle against Indians that culminated at the
Tippecanoe River , ran as the man of the
people against the New York machine
politician Martin Van Buren:
Who rules us with an iron rod
Who moves at Satan's beck and nod
Who heeds not man, who heeds not God
Van Buren!
Who would his friends his country sell
Do other deeds to base to tell
Deserves the lowest place in Hell
Van Buren!
"Now there's an example of an attack ad,"
said Tony Seeger, nephew of folk legend
Pete Seeger and the curator and director of
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in
Washington, D.C. "I'm interested in seeing
the ways people express their aspirations
and hopes through music," added Seeger,
53, whose division of the Smithsonian
Institution is producing Brand's project.
Brand is the only artist to record an
overview of presidential campaign songs
that did not focus on a particular era, such
as the Depression, Seeger said. Although
Seeger first suggested the project as a way
to "take stock" of America's electoral
history, Brand has complete control of song
choice.
To demonstrate a non-partisan attitude, the
new CD will return Harrison's attack on
Van Buren. Brand and company will render
an anti-Harrison refrain that plays to the
tune of "Rock a Bye Baby." The Tyler
reference is to Harrison's running mate,
John Tyler:
Rock a bye baby, your daddy's a Whig
When he comes home, hard cider he'll swig
And when he has swug, he'll fall in a stew
And down will come Tyler and Tippecanoe.
A good stirring rhythm, put to a well-known
melody, could "take the edge off" the
harshness of the lyrics, said John S. Nelson,
48, who chairs the political science
department at the University of Iowa at
Iowa City.
"The beat, the rhythm is more important
than the content," said Nelson, an expert in
political theory and communication. "Is this
the kind of candidate you feel real
sympathetic to?"
----------
"Presidential Campaign Songs 1789-1996"
will be available in March or April 1999 for
$21. The 1952 recording can be ordered
by calling Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings at 800-443-9815. To see the
catalog of Smithsonian recordings, the Web
site is www.si.edu/folkways.
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