Oscar Brand

Oscar Brand was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter, composer, radio and television host, and author, born on February 7, 1920, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to a Jewish family. His father, Isidore Brand, worked as an interpreter for the Hudson's Bay Company, and his mother was named Beatrice. In 1927, the family relocated from Winnipeg to Minneapolis, then to Chicago, and eventually to New York City. Brand grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, graduated from Erasmus Hall High School, and earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Brooklyn College.

Over a career spanning seven decades, Brand composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, ranging from novelty material and patriotic songs to serious social commentary. He wrote the lyrics to "A Guy is a Guy" in 1952, which became a hit for Doris Day, and the English lyrics to "Shlub-a-Dubba-Dub" in 1961, which became a minor hit for Mitch Miller. Among his most recognized compositions was the Canadian patriotic song known as "Something to Sing About," with the actual title "This Land of Ours," considered one of Canada's national songs. In 1976, he recorded "Why Not the Best?", the campaign song for Jimmy Carter's successful presidential run.

Brand's Broadway composing credits include A Joyful Noise and The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, the latter a musical adaptation of Leo Rosten's stories centered on the fictional Jewish character Hyman Kaplan. He also collaborated on the 1968 Off-Broadway production How to Steal an Election, a satirical work whose songs included "Charisma," performed in the character of Calvin Coolidge, and "Down Among the Grassroots."

On December 10, 1945, Brand launched Oscar Brand's Folksong Festival on WNYC-AM 820 in New York City, broadcasting on Saturday evenings. The program ran continuously until September 2016, a span of nearly 71 years, and was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running radio show with a single host in broadcasting history. To protect the program from censorship, Brand declined payment from WNYC for the entirety of its run. The show served as an early platform for artists including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul and Mary, Judy Collins, The Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, and the Weavers. Brand received a Peabody Award for broadcast excellence in 1982 for The Sunday Show on National Public Radio, and shared a Personal Peabody Award with Oprah Winfrey in 1995.

In Canada, Brand hosted the televised folk concert series Let's Sing Out!, which aired from 1963 to 1967, beginning on CTV and later moving to CBC. Staged at university campuses across Canada, the program featured performers including Joni Mitchell, then known as Joni Anderson, Bonnie Dobson, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Dave Van Ronk, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Ochs, and Gordon Lightfoot, among others. Brand also hosted shorter-lived CTV series during the period when Let's Sing Out! had moved to CBC.

Throughout his career Brand performed alongside Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Jean Ritchie, the Weavers, and Pete Seeger. He and Jean Ritchie recorded several duets together, including the British song "Keys to Canterbury." Brand was one of the original organizers of the Newport Folk Festival, which launched in 1959, and performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival in 1962, 1968, 1969, 1987, and at its 50th anniversary in 2010. In May 1976, he appeared at the Phil Ochs memorial celebration at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, performing Ochs' "Love Me I'm A Liberal" with updated lyrics.

Brand also served during the 1960s as a board member of the Children's Television Workshop and participated in the development of Sesame Street. It has been reported, though with competing accounts, that the character Oscar the Grouch was named after him as a playful reference to disagreements he had with board members over the show's setting. He composed the original theme and provided musical direction for the 1976 Smithsonian Institution documentary Celebrating a Century: The 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

Despite never holding membership in any Communist party and identifying as anti-Stalinist, Brand was named in the June 1950 premiere issue of Red Channels as a Communist sympathizer, alongside Paul Robeson, Josh White, and Pete Seeger. The House Committee on Un-American Activities had characterized his radio program as a "pipeline of communism" because of his support for the First Amendment rights of blacklisted artists. Following contact from HUAC, Brand met privately with a committee representative. He was nonetheless a long-standing supporter of civil rights and participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.

Brand authored several books, including The Ballad Mongers: Rise of the American Folk Song, Songs Of '76: A Folksinger's History Of The Revolution, and the four-volume Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads. He also wrote short stories, among them "The Miser's Gold" and "The Hitchhiker," dramatic readings of which were issued as cardboard records on the backs of Honeycomb cereal boxes. He contributed stories and songs to the Young People's Records label, including "Noah's Ark."

On February 7, 2010, CBC Radio's Sunday Edition marked Brand's 90th birthday with a program dedicated to his life and career. Brand died of pneumonia on September 30, 2016, at the age of 96.