The Many Faces of Oscar Brown, Jr.
By Deardra Shuler
Oscar Brown Jr., was a man for all time. A wordsmith, actor, lyricist, singer, playwright and poet, and Brown was very much a civil rights activist. In fact, the first time he voted in the State of Illinois where he was born, he voted for himself. He ran for office in the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Congress.
Raised on the south side of Chicago, Brown was named after his father Oscar Brown Sr., who was both a real estate broker and an attorney. While Oscar had a brief career in advertising and sales, his love was always music and words. In fact, his singing debut was on the radio program “Secret City” when he was 15 years of age. By 21, he was hosting a daily radio show entitled “Negro Newsfront.” which was centered around the stories of Black people in America. Brown attended both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Lincoln University, following up his education with a stint in what was at that time, a segregated army. Much of what he experienced there and when growing up formulated his rebellious nationalistic spirit.
In 1958, after attending the opening of Raisin in the Sun,” Brown met music publisher Robert Nemiroff, playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s husband. Nemiroff was so impressed by Brown’s compositions he introduced him to Al Ham of Columbia Records. Although Brown expected to write songs, Ham had other plans and signed Oscar to a singing contract. His debut album with Columbia was “Sin & Soul.” This opened the doors to a gig at the Village Vanguard where Brown performed with the likes of John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. By 1962, Brown was the emcee of the variety talk show “Jazz Scene USA.”
By the late 1960s, Brown had set up stakes in San Francisco where he wrote the play “Big Time Buck White,” which starred Muhammad Ali. He went on to work with the notorious street gangs of Chicago in an effort to curb their violence via his play “Opportunity Please Knock.” His musicals included “Kicks & Company,” “Summer In The City,” “Joy 66” and Joy ‘69” among others.
Oscar was a prolific and ingenious writer/performer who lived a full and exciting life before his passing on Sunday, May 29, 2005, when Oscar left the mortal world to pursue music in higher realms. He was 78. Prior to his passing he wrote over a thousand songs, many social protest songs and poems, and even some operas. He wrote lyrics and poems like “Watermelon Man,” “Bid ‘Em In,’ “Brown Baby,” “Signifying Monkey,” “But I Was Cool,” “Work Song,” “This Beach” “40 Acres and a Mule,” “The Snake,” “Dat Dere,” “Afro Blue” and much more.
The world lost a great humanitarian, humorist and advocate for social justice when Oscar Brown Jr., put down his pen for the last time to make his final curtain call. The H.I.P. Legacy Foundation which Brown founded carries on his work.
(Click onto his name above his picture to hear the radio interview).
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