Track Listings (17) - Disc #1| All Artists: Oscar Brown Jr. Title: Sin & Soul & Then Some Members Wishing: 3 Total Copies: 0 Label: Sony Original Release Date: 11/5/1996 Release Date: 11/5/1996 Genres: Jazz, Pop, R&B, Broadway & Vocalists Styles: Vocal Jazz, Bebop, Vocal Pop, Traditional Vocal Pop Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPC: 074646499429 |
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Search - Oscar Brown Jr. :: Sin & Soul & Then Some
 | Oscar Brown Jr. Sin & Soul & Then Some Genres: Jazz, Pop, R&B, Broadway & Vocalists
Chicagoan Oscar Brown Jr. stormed his way to early '60s prominence with the Columbia debut album that provides the bulk of this satisfying collection. A lush, nimble baritone and a keen sense of his identity as an African ... more » |
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Amazon.com Chicagoan Oscar Brown Jr. stormed his way to early '60s prominence with the Columbia debut album that provides the bulk of this satisfying collection. A lush, nimble baritone and a keen sense of his identity as an African American made Sin & Soul a triumphant calling card, its range of characters and narratives going far beyond the usual canon of romantic pop covers, as Brown dug into the knotty experience of black America, a volatile prospect in 1960 when the original version of the album was cut. It's not a stretch to argue that tracks like "But I Was Cool," his hilarious portrait of a clueless loser, or "Bid 'Em In," a riveting slave auctioneer's patter, prefigured rap, but Brown also delivers shuffles, tender ballads, and theatrical set pieces, some reworking solid instrumentals from Bobby Timmons, Herbie Hancock, Mongo Santamaria, and Bobby Bryant. From the tender paternal pride of "Dat Dere" to the teeth-gritting chain gang anthem, "Work Song," the set remains a classic, sensuous, vibrantly moral, funny, and tragic. --Sam Sutherland Similar CDs
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CD ReviewsA Jazz Phenomenon John T. O'Connor | Ohio | 12/22/2006 (5 out of 5 stars) "Oscar Brown Jr was one of a kind. A wonderful baritone voice, a wonderful way with words, a historian's eye for what was going on and a journalist's eye for reporting. He was fully as much the voice of the 60s as Dylan, only he sang better, and he did swing. Oh my did he swing. My all time favorite album was Between Heaven and Hell, but that hasn't been rereleased as yet. Two songs from that album are here, though. Mr Kicks and World Full of Gray. He felt the Black experience, but I'm not Black and I loved his songs. One fantastic song I haven't heard since the 60s is Elegy. Oscar Brown Jr will be missed. Buy this CD before someone realizes that it's meaningful music and takes it off the market." This 'Sin & Soul' Has Always Run Deep Cornell Hills | Fairfax, VA | 03/20/2007 (5 out of 5 stars) "I was a kid looking up at being a teenager when I first experienced `Sin & Soul.' In fact, it was the sudden retrieval of an up-til-then forgotten memory that made me wish madly that I could find a copy of this Oscar Brown, Jr. classic.
The album (yes, it was and always will be the album I remember and hear) was my big sister's. I wore out that record more listening to it more than she did until I had every word of every lyric memorized. The magic was that you do not memorize the lyrics of what Oscar Brown, Jr. has compiled here - you feel them, deep within you. From the first time I heard `Chain Gang' I visualized with crystal clarity not what being on the chain gang was like, but why the person in the song was on the chain gang in the first place. And I was the kid asking the wild questions of `What Dat Dere?' I can never think about `Signifyin' Monkey; I always see and act out the play that the story is revealing to me. It was a long time that I was even conscious that neither Oscar Brown, Jr. nor I were singing the song with a straight voice, but with character voices. That's how vivid that song is. "Watermelon Man" brings up images from my days of summer vacations with my Chicago cousins as we visited our aunt and cousins in St. Louis. `Rags and Old Iron' was one of my St. Louis aunt's neighbors: a very sweet but lonely older lady who sat out on the front porch most of the day and into the night. Oscar Brown Jr.'s depiction of the slave trade hits me more deeply than seeing his images come to life in the TV miniseries "Roots." I think I learned a lesson without knowing it from the desperate, life-weary old man in `Somebody Buy Me a Drink.' It will always be difficult to categorize `Sin & Soul.' It defies pigeon holing. Oscar Brown Jr. displays a diversity here that is part poetry, folk, jazz, blues, and plain ol' singer-songwriter. The arrangements are not fancy but even as a musician who has arranged a lot of music, I cannot imagine touching any of `Sin & Soul.' Some things are just perfect as they are, even 40 years later. `Sin & Soul' is one of those musical experiences that makes your soul cry out that everyone needs to listen to this and feel it and get into it and understand it and enjoy it. I wish it could get more exposure to more people. If you haven't heard `Sin & Soul,' you need to. I wish Oscar were still around...." |
