A Singer Who Played It Cool & Kept the Heat On

Make a fine lady's maid when she's properly whipped

The search for social justice that proved a continuing thread in Brown's work was hardly surprising -- his father was a lawyer and political activist. But in college, Brown immersed himself in poetry -- British bards Shakespeare, Keats and Shelley and the great black poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen -- as well as musical theater, from classic Broadway composers to the political cabaret of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. He'd also be influenced by the left-leaning folk revival of the late '50s and early '60s.

Brown was a family friend of fellow South Side resident Lorraine Hansberry, whose "Raisin in the Sun" had a pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago; Hansberry's husband owned a music publishing firm and was the one who brought "Brown Baby" to Jackson. A composer's demo for those sessions led to Brown being signed by Columbia, and early on he made a name for himself adding lyrics to jazz hits like Nat Adderley's "Work Song," Miles Davis's "All Blues," Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue" and Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer."

The writer drew from black culture for narratives like "Signifyin' Monkey" and "The Snake," crafted such civil rights anthems as "Opportunity Please Knock" and "We Insist! Freedom Now," a 1960 jazz suite written with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, and voiced compassion for his community in "Brother, Where Are You?" and "Children Having Children." Brown's songs were recorded by the likes of Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Tony Bennett and Ricki Lee Jones, but no one ever did them better than their author.

One particular audience favorite found Brown wryly reporting on a series of romantic and financial setbacks, all the while insisting he maintained the upper hand:

I've always lived by this golden rule: Whatever happens, don't blow your cool

You've got to have nerves of steel, and never show folks how you honestly feel

I've lived my whole life this way. For example, take yesterday

I breezed home happy, bringing her my pay

Her note read, "So long, Sappy, I have run away"

I threw myself down across our empty bed, and this is what I said --

And here, Oscar Brown Jr. would break into the most pitiful dramatic sobbing, before delivering his coda:

But I was cool.

That he was.