Cold Sweat

Wikipedia:

"Cold Sweat" is a song performed by James Brown and written by his bandleader Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis. Brown recorded it in May 1967. An edited version of "Cold Sweat" released as a two-part single on King Records was a #1 R&B hit, and reached number seven on the Pop Singles chart. A complete version of the song, over 7 minutes long, was included on the album Cold Sweat.

In the song's lyrics Brown protests that he doesn't care about his woman's past or faults, and testifies that with even her slightest display of affection toward him "I break out in a cold sweat."

Creation

In an interview with Down Beat magazine, Ellis described the circumstances of the song's creation:

Characteristics

Like "Out of Sight" (1964) and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (1965), "Cold Sweat" was a watershed event in the evolution of funk music. While those songs were both based on a conventional twelve bar blues chord progression, "Cold Sweat" has only one definite chord change, a move to the subtonic at the bridge. As in the earlier songs, all the band's instruments (horns, guitars, etc.) are used percussively in "Cold Sweat", and overwhelming emphasis is put on the first beat of each measure ("on the one"). The main drum part is a two-bar pattern with a snare hit on the two and four beats (a standard 4/4 rock pattern) with a simple variation: the four beat hit in the first measure is delayed by one eighth note. This snare pattern contributed greatly to the funky feel of the arrangement. It was copied, often with embellishments, in later James Brown songs and numerous songs by other musical artists.

"Cold Sweat" is the first recording in which Brown calls for a drum solo ("give the drummer some") from Clyde Stubblefield, beginning the tradition of rhythmic "breaks" that would become important in dance music and form the foundation of sampling in Hip-Hop as pioneered by DJ Kool Herc. It also features a saxophone solo by Maceo Parker.

Impact

Sometimes cited as the first true funk song, "Cold Sweat" was recognized as a radical departure from pop music conventions at the time of its release. Jerry Wexler recalled that "'Cold Sweat' deeply affected the musicians I knew. It just freaked them out. No one could get a handle on what to do next." Cliff White described it as "divorced from other forms of popular music." Some musicians criticized it as simplistic. Fred Wesley recalled that before he joined Brown's band he "was very unimpressed with ['Cold Sweat']. . . It only had one change, the words made no sense at all, and the bridge was musically incorrect." Critic Dave Marsh, while acknowledging the song as pivotal, has argued that "the post-'Cold Sweat' de-emphasis of melody" was partly responsible for a "decline in the number of genuinely memorable songs" in the years since its release.

Brown would continue to develop the rhythmically intense, harmonically static template pioneered on "Cold Sweat" in later recordings such as "I Got the Feelin'", "Mother Popcorn", "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine", and "Super Bad".

Like many of Brown's funk hits, "Cold Sweat" has been extensively sampled by hip hop DJs and producers.

Other versions

"Cold Sweat" has been covered by various bands and musicians, notably by Mongo Santamaría in 1968. Brown himself recorded a jazz-inflected version of "Cold Sweat" with the Dee Felice Trio for his 1969 album Gettin' Down to It.

Personnel

with the James Brown Orchestra:

Produced by James Brown

Chart positions

Citations