Speaking of family…..

About a century ago, Oscar Brown, Sr. was a lawyer in Chicago, and Oscar Brown, Jr. grew up with the expectation that he would one day follow in his father’s patent leather footsteps. He gave it a shot, but the siren call of the stage and the spotlight proved irresistible.

Brown the Younger spent most of his 20s moving from job to job: radio, advertising, public relations, politics, the Army. But the straight world wasn’t where it was at. In the late 1950s he must have started performing in clubs because somehow his music came to the attention of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and jazz drummer Max Roach, both of whom recorded songs by Brown in 1960. He was gaining a lot of fans among the mover and shakers in New York and soon Columbia Records came calling.

Brown’s debut album — sounding like a cross between the Rat Pack and Nina Simone — came out in 1961 to critical acclaim. That same year, he attempted to trade on his newfound fame in order to accomplish what he really wanted: to stage a Broadway musical.

The show was titled Kicks & Co. and featured a riff on Damn Yankees by having a Satanic ambassador called Mr. Kicks intruding on the proceedings with temptations and trouble and whatnot. Well-known character actor Burgess Meredith played the titular role and Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek also featured in the cast. In a bold move, Brown set the show on the campus of an all-Black college in the South, which was a groundbreaking choice in the early 1960s.

Unfortunately, the production may have been too bold and groundbreaking and the show closed after only four performances. However, Brown still believed in the songs and recorded many of them for his second album, 1962’s Between Heaven And Hell.

Brown continued recording albums into the 70s and also continued writing musicals, a couple of which were minor successes. He was also an outspoken activist for civil rights throughout his life, so even though he didn’t go into the family business, he still had a little bit of lawyer in him.

There are two versions of “Mr. Kicks” — one that serves as the opening track on Brown’s second album and one which he recorded for his debut album but wasn’t used at the time. I prefer the original, unused take because of the faster tempo and the stripped down arrangement (and it’s also the first version I heard) so that’s what we’re going with.