Oscar Brand

Oscar Brand (February 7, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter, radio host, and author. He released nearly 100 albums and composed hundreds of songs, among them Canadian patriotic songs, songs of the U.S. Armed Forces, sea shanties, presidential campaign songs over the years, and songs of protest. His discography is extensive.

Since 1945, he continuously hosted the longest-running (70+ years) radio program in history, Folksong Festival on WNYC AM (New York).

It has been reputed that as a playful joke, the Sesame Street character of Oscar the Grouch was named after him, although there are dueling tales as to the origin of the character

[Wikipedia]

Brand’s maritime music claim to fame was his inclusion of a sea shanty album as part of his bawdy songs series.  For a legitimate and prolific performer it seems exceptional that he recorded so many non-family friendly albums.  That said, his accurate depiction of a genre of music that was notoriously blue was a great service to the historical accuracy of the songs.  Folksinger Jerry Bryant adopted an alternate persona named Salty Dick who went on to do his own renditions of many of Brands songs.