The Folksinger's Daughter

Book excerpt: When you're growing up as the daughter of famed folksinger and composer Oscar Brand, you get Arlo Guthrie as a swim instructor and Eleanor Roosevelt as a babysitter. You experience a childhood laced with such stunning personalities as John Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Theodore Bikel, Jean Ritchie, Johnny Cash, and Pete Seeger. You spend your summer vacations floating from one folk festival to another. You even have a blues legend like Brownie McGhee singing you your lullabies. But you also get the vagaries of an uncertain existence - an existence that is not only uncertain financially, but often emotionally, as your single-father Dad struggles to balance the responsibilities of parenthood with the time-devouring necessity to make a living and build his career. Thus you frequently find yourself charged with responsibilities well beyond your years. At times hilarious and at times tragic, Jeannie Brand's story is one of both great joy and great sorrow, and never dull. A "must" for folk aficionados, and fascinating even for the general reader. Includes numerous photo illustrations.