Search - Oscar Brown Jr. :: Then & Now

New interpretations by Brown

Mark Savary | Seattle, WA | 08/26/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is an interesting album to add to your collection. On the classic Oscar Brown, Jr. debut album, "Sin & Soul...and Then Some", Brown greeted us back in 1961 with some new blues/jazz stylings that have lost none of their impact or freshness (the album has been reissued with deleted tracks that only enhance the experience, so that CD is highly recommended).Here, on "Then and Now", Brown gives us two albums for the price of one by splitting the tracks between his original work and his new, current work. The first eight or so tracks are taken up with Oscar's new versions of eight songs from the classic "Sin & Soul". The second half is all new work from Brown.The idea works, for the most part, although I admit to a slight bias for his older songs (offerings like "Cyberspace is the Place" just sound a bit strange to me). The newer renditions of the classic work are more playful and freeform than their original counterparts. For "Dat Dere", Brown's homage to the ever-questioning child's eye view, Brown adopts a child-like voice which is at times hard to hear. Ithink this distracts from the song, but you can tell he's having fun. Probably most successful is his new styling of "Rags and Old Iron", becoming a freeform amalgam of the street vendor songs on the classic album.The new work is a bit more effervecient, and is decidedly where Oscar's heart is now. "Honeydo" is a fun piece about relationships ("Honey do this, Honey do dat, Honey do the other."). "The Entertainer" is a respectful homage to Scott Joplin and his music, and most of the other new songs work very well. "Cyberspace is the Place" is fun, but ultimately doesn't satify because the idea (and point of the 1995 song), that racism does not exist in cyberspace is, of course, sadly untrue. Another slight dud would have to be "Hymn To The Homeless", which purports that the only crime homeless people are guilty of is not having a place to live. As we discovered in the 80's, not all homeless people want help, but would rather take a handout. The song implies otherwise, which again, is sadly untrue.Regardless of these minor quibbles, it's amazing to compare Brown's work both old and new, and also compare the first part of the 1995 album to the classic work from 1961. Here, we get an overview of the evolution of the artist."