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.