Brother Dave? A Christian Comic?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 12th, 2004

NO! We did a little surfing and found that, in spite of album titles like “Rejoice, Dear Hearts” and “Kick Thy Own Self,” Brother Dave Gardner was not a Christian comic in any way, shape or form. And we even listened to the album itself! (Yeah, yeah, why didn’t you do that in the first place? Well, often the albums we buy aren’t in the best condition. This one was near excellent, however.) Turns out Dave was a hipster and he addressed his audience in quirky ways like “Dear Hearts” and “Beloved” but he does political material, observational stuff, he plays with the language, it’s surprisingly modern for a comic from 1961.

We speak of Brother Dave because he died in 1983 at the age of 57. And he had quite a story. There’s a fellow in Burlington, NC, who’s doing a one-man show based on Brother Dave, read about it here.