Folk legend still a firebrand at 90

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This article was published 09/07/2010 (5908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Oscar Brand says he’s not your usual 90-year-old, he’s not kidding.

The Winnipeg-born entertainer has released 100 albums, was the inspiration for the iconic TV character Oscar the Grouch, composed Canada’s alternate national anthem, wrote 11 books, served time in the United States army, was blacklisted as a communist sympathizer, had his own television variety show and has hosted his own radio show going on 65 years.

"I’m not the usual 90; I’m a fast-working bleeding stellar 90," the quick-witted nonagenarian says over the phone from his New York home. "I just woke up yesterday — I’m still tired."

He’s kidding, of course, because Brand is a natural joker whose rapidfire sense of humour is still as sharp as his mind. Brand was born on Feb. 7, 1920 and spent his early years living on Lusted Avenue in Point Douglas with his mother, father, sister and brother, and attended Norquay School. He still has family in the city and visits occasionally.

He is in town again this weekend to play the Winnipeg Folk Festival. He will perform at two afternoon sessions: today as part of a celebration of his music, and Saturday during the Songs I Wish I Wrote workshop.

As for the songs he wrote, there are acoustic ballads, sea shanties, children’s songs, parodies, political satires, military tributes, film scores and an off-Broadway musical, but he is best known by many for his bawdy songs, humorous, ribald ditties that were considered obscene by some when he began recording them in the late 1940s.

Some of his most famous include None is Bigger Than Mine, All About Turds, Seven Old Ladies and Winnipeg Whore, adapted from the song Halifax Whore.

"To me these were not bawdy songs or questionable songs; they were songs I learned as a kid," he says. "They were part of my life. There were more bawdy songs on the streets of Winnipeg that kids were afraid to sing for their parents."

He and his family split their time between Winnipeg and the Big Apple until he was about nine, before finally settling in the United States for good, he says, although the family would often return to Canada.

He joined the U.S. army for the Second World War and worked as a section chief of a psychology unit. When the war ended in 1945 he began hosting the Folksong Festival radio show on WNYC, which holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous radio show with the same host.

He recorded his first album, Absolute Nonsense, in 1948 and was a contemporary of pioneers like Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

"I’m still playing guitar, but I was never very good," he says. "Woody Guthrie used to play guitar for me. He would fool around with me. He would play different chords — I would sing one song and he would play another.

"They used to make fun of me because I was singing with a Canadian accent."

That accent helped land him a CTV variety show, Let’s Sing Out, in the 1960s, which featured his song Something to Sing About as the theme. The tune, which begins, "I have walked cross the sand on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland," was known coast to coast at the time, and there was even a movement afoot to have it declared the national anthem (despite the fact the Grand Banks of Newfoundland are underwater).

He went on to join the board of the Children’s Television Workshop and helped shape the direction of Sesame Street. He often got into heated arguments about what should or shouldn’t be part of the show, hence the name of the character Oscar the Grouch.

Brand was anything but grouchy about being asked to return to the folk festival, whose inaugural 1974 fest he performed at and hosted and where he last appeared in 1980.

"I haven’t performed for at least two days and I’ve forgotten the whole thing," he says. "When we get there I’ll do what is absolutely necessary under the circumstances to remember."

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Folk Festival facts

Where: Birds Hill Park, 20 kilometres north of Winnipeg on Highway 59.

When: Today until Sunday.

Tickets: Weekend passes (including service fees and taxes) $220 for adults, $130 for seniors and youths and $20 for children (5-14). Daily passes: adults $75, youths/seniors $60, children $6. Available at Ticketmaster or gate.

Stages: Seven daytime stages, two evening stages.

Times: Daytime programming begins at 11 a.m. Mainstage concerts start at 6 p.m.

Gates: Festival gates open at 10 a.m.

Chair rule: Chairs should be 60 centimetres (two feet) high or less. People in higher chairs must sit in a designated area.

Winnipeg Transit operates a daily shuttle bus to the festival beginning at 10 a.m. The bus departs hourly from York and Memorial. Fare is $4.70. For more information call 986-5700.

 

Tonight on the mainstage

Breabach, 6 p.m.

Sonny Landreth, 7 p.m.

Aterciopelados, 8:20 p.m.

The Swell Season, 9:30 p.m.

The Peatbog Faeries, 10:55 p.m.

 

Big Blue @ Night stage

 

Jim Bryson with the Weakerthans, 7 p.m.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, 8:30 p.m.

Oka, 10:30 p.m.

Freep picks

WITH seven daytime stages running today, music fans attending the Winnipeg Folk Festival will have some tough decisions deciding what to see — but what a great dilemma.

To help you narrow those choices down, we compiled a list of some of the Winnipeg Free Press staff picks.

Of course, these options are just the tip of the iceberg. With so much great music happening all over the site, wandering from stage to stage and discovering new music is part of the festival’s appeal.

The United Steel Workers of Montreal (11 a.m., Green Ash)

It Takes a Global Village: Delhi 2 Dublin, Oka, the Peatbog Faeries (12:30 p.m., Green Ash)

Oscar Brand Celebration: Oscar Brand, Josh White Jr., Del Barber, the Duhks, Greg MacPherson (4 p.m. Snowberry)

— Rob Williams

 

It Takes a Global Village: Delhi 2 Dublin, Oka, the Peatbog Faeries (12:30 p.m., Green Ash)

Ghostkeeper (1:15, Little Stage)

Scotch and Screech: The Dardanelles, Breabach, the Peatbog Faeries (4 p.m., Big Bluestem)

— Jill Wilson

 

Golden Girls: The Wailin’ Jennys, Good Lovelies, Ladies of the Canyon (11 a.m., Big Bluestem)

The Pines (1 p.m., Big Bluestem)

Oscar Brand Celebration: Oscar Brand, Josh White Jr., Del Barber, the Duhks, Greg MacPherson (4 p.m., Snowberry)

 

— Morley Walker