Oscar Brown Jr., a legendary rhythm & blues and jazz singer who has composed several hundred songs and recorded 11 albums. He received two Emmy Awards for a television special, and he hosted the PBS series From Jump Street: The Story of Black Music.

He hosted the first Black radio news show in the country, collaborated with Max Roach on the "Freedom Now Suite", and composed the Broadway musical "Big Time Buck White" starring Muhammad Ali.

The interview was done at the World Stage in Leimert Park in Los Angeles, and was conducted by journalist Michael Slate.

 

Oscar Brown, Jr. performing at Artspeaks in Watts, 1999
photo by Carlo Medina

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Michael Slate: One thing I was listening to last night, an interview with Paul Robeson on one of the Pacifica stations. And he had talked about that his politics always enriched and deepened his art. And he also said though, that, it also is something you pointed to earlier. He also worried about the fact, that it meant too that they didn't always give him the chance to distribute his art as broadly as possible. And in Robeson's case, taking away his passport, not allowing him to do concerts. He had to leave the country at a certain point. And with you, there's always has been a battle. There's always been a battle to basically take the big stages. Not to just be content with doing, as good as they were, the trade union theater, or small recordings. You fought to take the big stages.

And one of the times you intially set out to do that was "Kicks & Company." And I know, again, when you were performing at the Jazz Bakery, a brother from this area actually turned around to me and said, "You know, I was growing up in Cheyenne, Wyoming and it's a very small Black population in Cheyenne, and it was winter and was really cold. And I was just thinking, 'What the hell am I doing, I have to out and walk to school..'" And he turned on the Today show, and Dave Garoway (sp?) suddenly turned over the entire 2 hours to you. And he said he started to listen to you and started to listen to what you were doing with "Kicks and Company". And he said he skipped school that day. It changed his life. It sent him off in a whole different direction, in a creative direction. And why don't you tell us a little about "Kicks and Company" How that developed, what you were looking at then.

Oscar Brown Jr.: I met "Mr. Kicks" one New Year's day after a hell of a party! (laughter in audience). And my friend and I were talking about people who just live for kicks. And so, the idea, 'permit me to introduce myself. My name is Mr. Kicks. I come from the hollow hell hole way down by the river Styx.' Now that's the first time I met this dude. He took over. And I began to try and write a play with that as the central character. As a musical. We had the songs "Mr. Kicks" and some other songs that I was able to adapt to that.

I had a heroine. I had a song called "Hazel Hips". And the heroine as Hazel worked very well for her. That kind of thing got me started with that. But it took years, a couple of years, actually, to write that. Because as I said, at that time, most of the people would be writing something that they adapted something from. But I couldn't find anything to adapt anything from! There wasn't that much of a body of literature, certainly not theaterical literature, from which to draw. So, I had to come up with some idea of my own.

Based on my whole identification with Robeson and his influence and all, he and Dick Durham, my party membership, my whole life experience it had. I was still going to be the person I have been, the revolutionary I had been in my twenties. Even as I went into my thirties, to writing plays and stuff. And I was going to write a play that put Mr. Kicks in a working class situation in a trade union situation.

But just then I saw a picture of some kids on Ebony magazine who were in jail in North Carolina at a sit-in. And oh my, this was you know, was the thing. So, I made the focus of the thing, 'Freedman University for Negroes' in Down South, and Mr. Kicks was trying to corrupt this sit-in movement. Because he realized that white kids consider what Black kids do is hip. And he was afraid if this whole love movement took hold that it would jump the color line. And in fact it did. It wound up later. So that was somewhat prophetic I thought. But at that point none of that actually happened.

But I written this play, I wrote part of the play. And this was while I was in negotiations with Al Hamm about Columbia Records after I sent the contract back in the 'who needs him' episode. And about a year later Al calls up, and says 'hey you know we are the best game in town so why don't you sign', 'that's our standard contract, you get a hit movie and you write it.' But that never happened. But I signed. Because it was the best game. I've been trying other things for a year but nothing was working. And this was Columbia records, you know, with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day and you know what the hell.

And it was cool. I mean If I hadnt been so serverely exploited you would have never heard of me! (audience laughter) Had I maintained financial integrity with my art no one would have heard of my art. That was just the way it was. That was the only game in town.

But when I went there I carried the draft of "Kicks & Co." with me. And I showed it to Laurene Hansberg (?) and ... And they liked it and wanted to produce it for Broadway. Turned out it would cost $400,000 to produce on Broadway. This was in 1960 when $400,000 was considered alot of money. And I said 'shit if I thought it was going to cost that, I never would have written it!" (audience laughter) I would have assumed that would be an impossible amount of money to raise.

However, upon the success of "Raisin in the Sun" there was a kind of new climate as far as that was concerned. And here I was coming on not just with a play, but with a musical. And it had some charming songs in it. And you know you only give excerpts to 'backers auditions'. They dont get the whole play. So I had all that honed out.

So we would be doing backers auditions, raising the money, most of the time in the wealthy homes, in the homes of wealthy people in New York and Philadelphia. That was interesting. I remember doing it to people who own Teeled Beer (?) were connected with the people who were producing us. And they had us up there in Central Park West. And it was magnificent. Martin Luther King came that time. And he wrote a very glowing praise of the piece, because it was about what he was about. Other people, Eleanor Roosevelt, attended one of the backers auditions, because the backers auditions began to grow and grow and grow until it became four or five hundred people in the backer's auditions. Shelley Winters and Harry Belafonte, and all kinds of folks would come.

So we got, you know, real glowing reviews, and we got alot of money coming in. But at the same time, I had recorded 'Sin and Soul'. I had gotten a record contract, and that's why I came to New York with the play. So I recorded 'Sin and Soul'. And as soon 'Sin and Soul' came out they wanted me to start singing on a stage. And they started talking to me about the mystique of a new star. And boy, I started to seeing myself up there - so the homebody idea went out. (audience laughter)

And I got a gig at the Village Vanguard singing and I was terrific. I was just a natural right from the beginning. I don't know how I did it but I just did it. I had all kinds of stuff. I had a 'do and red hat and all kinds of stuff. I just dazzled them with footwork.

And all the agents came and tried to sign me to their agency and offering me money. And I said 'Shit, I have this play coming on Broadway, so whatever you say now will be obsolete when I get this hit on Broadway. That where we're going to get the big money. So, I'm not even signing with anybody.' But this guy, Joe Glazer, one of these little slimy dudes. Joe Glazer put me on the Today program just to show me how powerful his agency was. And I sang "Brown Baby", "Red Rags ol Eyes", and "Dat There". And it was the day when they were reporting the news about the girls getting blown up down there in Alabama.

And when I sang, "Brown Baby" they were crying. And they gotten more cards and letters then they ever gotten from anybody that they had on in the nine years. And all the cards and letters were positive. There was not one KKK attitude in that at all.

And it was coming from Middle America. I think most them came from Tennessse. And from people like, Mary Margaret McBride, I don't know if you ever heard, or not old enough, but she was a real Aunt Bee type. (audience laughter) And there would be tears on the pages on some of them. And it was really impressive.

And I discovered then that this is something that they dont want. They're ready for the guy who says "Off the Pig!" Cause they're ready for that. They wish the hell you would come with that. You know. Because they want to kill you. But if you say something that is going to endear you to other people. If your going to create sympathy. If you're going to create a beauty. If they're going to see you in another light. That, the establishment will not tolerate!

to be continued...