LOS ANGELES — Oscar Brand, a longtime force on the American folk scene whose radio program “Folksong Festival” showcased Woody Guthrie and a young Bob Dylan among music greats and newcomers, has died, his manager said Saturday. He was 96.

Brand died Friday at his home in Great Neck, N.Y., after two bouts with pneumonia in recent weeks, said Doug Yeager, his longtime manager and friend.

Brand taped his final “Folksong Festival” for public radio station WNYC two weeks ago, and it aired Saturday, Sept. 24.

The 70 years Brand spent with “Folksong Festival” earned him and the program a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-airing radio show with the same host (Guinness lists the program’s debut year as 1945).