Oscar Brand- Bawdy Hootenanny

I supposed I should just go out right now and apologize to the good people of Manitoba for today’s post as I bought this record ($6? Yikes) for the song I am going to post. I have bought and actually listened to another album in this series so I kind of had an idea what I was getting into with this.

This is a part of a series of at least “Bawdy” collections of tunes along certain folk genres from one Oscar Brand, who I am not surprised to now learn, was born in in Winnipeg in 1920.  Over his illustrious career, Brand wrote over 300 songs, (including “Something to Sing About”), released over 100 albums (mostly not bawdy), and performed along with such folk luminaries as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. His tenure hosting the  Folksong Festival for WNYC put him in the Guinness Record books as longest running radio show with a single host. His CTV/CBC show in the 60’s, helped introduce Canada to up and comers such as Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot.  When he pass in 2016 from pneumonia, he was 96.

So here is this , a piece in a series of bawdy records from the Audio Fidelity label.  At the time of this release, the series included 9 of these type albums.  This album in particular was originality released in 1955, but I am guessing this a re-release from the 60’s. Not a whole lot of diversity on this.  I mean you have one song about turds, two about drinking, and the rest about prostitution for the most part.  But still some interesting areas on here.  Brand is backed up on this record, incidentally by Dave Sear, who taught Paul Newman banjo for Cool Hand Luke.

 

Well, despite finding a few songs catchy, I hold my head in shame when I post this next song.  Here is the “Winnipeg Whore”, yet another tale in the long narrative of sailors/ travelers getting their belongings stolen by less than reputable prostitutes.

As far as the record goes, meh. The joke gets on on this about half way thru the first side.  I also thought a few of the songs, most notably “Plymouth Town” which was a disguised version of “The Maid of Amsterdam” could have been a bit better.

Ian & Sylvia- Four Strong Winds

Being that good Canadian that I am, I totally snagged this for a dollar.

Ian and Sylvia (who were on my blog when I was between jobs and had the time to write books on the subject) really broke thru the Canada and US market with this album, the couple’s 2nd, brought to you by those folk stalwarts at Vanguard Records.  Man, that is one long run on sentence. Released in 1964, the title track, composed by  Ian Tyson, also was a major hit both in Canada and among the folk world.

Perhaps I should state more but you can look at the earlier post for more information.  As far as this album went, I felt there was a large influence of American traditional music on it.  The album features guitar from John Herald.  I am so close to finishing up this month, this is really where we are going to leave it.  If you want to learn more, Google it.

For samples, I went with the French ” V la L’Bon Vent” as well as “The Royal Canal” which was the basis from Brendan Behan’s ‘Auld Triangle” which has been on this blog several times.

Top Rated Record.  One more post and this month is done.