" I don't have a sense of whether it was Brand's style to be coy or not. In other words, did he seem like someone who was likely to omit details (i.e. so as to tacitly let audiences form impressions), or was he the type to be explicit about sources (even if that took away some of the glamour!)?"

Brand did both in live performance and in his recordings. He delighted in singing bawdy lyrics but also enjoyed camouflaging them for greater effect. There were also censorship limits imposed during his early recordings, in the 1950s, but he certainly was diligent in test and expanding the limits of what was acceptable.

Brand is still around to ask.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble