Artist: Oscar Brown, Jr.

Oscar Brown Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights  activist, and actor. Brown wrote many songs (125 published), 2 albums, and more than a dozen musical plays. 

During Brown's twenties, he worked as the "world's first Black newscaster" for Negro Newsfront, a Chicago radio program that he coproduced with Vernon Jarrett.

When Mahalia Jackson recorded one of his songs, "Brown Baby", he began to focus on a career as a songwriter. His first major contribution to a recorded work was a collaboration with Vernon Jarrett, We Insist!, which was an early record celebrating the black freedom movement in the United States.  Columbia Records signed Brown as a solo artist. 

In 1960, Brown released his first LP, Sin & Soul, recorded from June 20 to October 23, 1960. Printed on the cover of the album were personal reviews by well-known celebrities and jazz musicians of the time, including Steve Allen, Lorraine Hansberry, Nat Hentoff, Dorothy Killgallen, Max Roach and Nina Simone (Simone would later cover his "Work Song" and Steve Allen would later hire him for his Jazz Scene USA television program). The album is regarded as a "true classic" for openly tackling the experiences of African Americans with songs such as "Bid 'Em In" and "Afro Blue". 

Sin & Soul is also significant because Brown took several popular jazz instrumentals and combined them with self-penned lyrics on songs such as "Dat Dere", "Afro Blue" and "Work Song". This began a trend that would continue with several other major jazz vocalists.

However, Brown was soon to fall down the pecking order at Columbia following a rearrangement of the management at the company, and Columbia was having a hard time packaging him as an artist. They were unsure whether Brown was suited to middle-of-the-road/easy listening nightclubs or alternatively should be presented as a jazz artist. Brown was given much more creative freedom for his fourth album, Tells It Like It Is (1963), and he was back to his creative best, composing songs such as "The Snake", which became a Northern soul classic when it was covered by Al Wilson, and has featured on several adverts.