Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads, Vol. 4

AMG Review of Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads, Vol. 4

Greg Adams
All Music Guide

Oscar Brand is the Doug Clark & the Hot Nuts of folk music, singing bawdy songs replete with four- and five-letter words that many people would like to believe hadn't been invented yet when Brand recorded this series of folk albums in the '50s. Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads, Vol. 4 is an entry in only one of Brand's series (his Bawdy Western Songs series had numerous volumes, too), and, like the others, includes acoustic performances with harmony vocals courtesy of Dave Sear. Their voices are so similar, the effect is the same as if Brand had double-tracked his own voice. Most songs feature a banjo and acoustic guitar for accompaniment, over which Brand sings such classics as "Sweet Violets" (the dirty version; not the one with which Dinah Shore had a hit) and "I Used to Work in Chicago," a variant of which Merle Travis recorded early in his career. Part of the melody of "The Old Sea Chest" will be recognizable to some listeners as the union song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." Brand also mixes up his performance style a little by affecting a Scottish accent on "The Cuckoo's Nest," but otherwise resembles a poor man's Pete Seeger. This isn't the bawdiest of his bawdy albums, but is notable for its versions of a few well-known folk songs.