Search - Oscar Brown Jr :: Tells It Like It Is / In a New Mood

Great but flawed.

tom appleton | 09/06/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"no, oscar brown jr is NOT sammy davis jr with or without an admixture of black power consciousness. SDJ was frankie boy's steppanfetchit, and while he was a great singer in his own right, he didn't really have anything over oscar brown jr, qualitywise. UNFORTUNATELY columbia records at the time thought that OBJ needed a career boost, so made him record a batch of standards, entitled "in a new mood" and here he DOES sound like a cross between harry belafonte and sammy davis jr at times. still, they're great tracks for the most part, and when i hear these standards now, done by anyone else, i instantly compare them to the OBJ versions -- and they don't usually stand up very well. of course, only a few years ago we'd be wondering who would still care to hear these old songs, but now with rod stewart serving up his THIRD helping of american standards, people may be more willing to lend an ear to THIS lot. the other LP, "oscar brown jr tells it like it is", is a bunch of odds and ends, and i recommend setting your CD player on track 6, "jeannine", and letting it repeat that for about a 100 times. then do the same with track 9, "all blues" and track 7, "the snake". after that you'll be more forgiving of the other eight tracks -- even that terrible, terrible, goshawful "a young girl", which is not only utterly predictable, but also -- oh not so much objectionable as simply a really moronic song -- and the music's pretty terrible too. picking charles aznavour to translate into english & sing was definitely not one of OBJ's more inspired career moves. Or not on the evidence presented here, anyway. so it's a great record -- but flawed. still: with a full dozen excellent tracks it's a must in terms of at last getting hold of a long unavailable offering by one of america's greatest song writers and a great singer in HIS own right, too."

A music Master

BABATUNDE ABDULLAH | Atlanta, Ga USA | 11/11/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Oscar Brown was one of the great story tellers or should I said Life Tellers of our time. I will truly miss his wisdom and musical genius."