James Brown, James Brown’s Funky Christmas
The kind of grand R&B schmaltz Brown always loved but rarely got to indulge in on record
Between 1966 and 1970, at the peak of his vocal powers, James Brown recorded three Christmas albums and a few holiday singles, whose high points are collected here. The prime mover on those original records records was saxophonist/songwriter Nat Jones, Brown's bandleader in the mid-'60s, who arranged and co-wrote most of 1966's Christmas Songs, contributed extensively to 1968's A Soulful Christmas, and was credited as sole writer on most of 1970's Hey America. Brown, though, put his stamp on all of them, turning on the deep-soul torch on covers of Nat "King" Cole's "The Christmas Song" and a couple of Charles Brown holiday tunes, bringing a hip-shaking swing to "Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto" and "Tit for Tat," and cranking up the funk on "Go Power at Christmas Time." A couple of these songs are bizarre throwaways, especially "Hey America," a Yuletide shout-out to the peace movement that finds Soul Brother #1 quoting "Hava Nagila" and "Volaré" as it fades out. For the most part, though, Funky Christmas is the kind of grand R&B schmaltz Brown always loved but rarely got to indulge in on record: sentimental, string-sweetened, sung with all his heart. "Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Please — please don't make me — don't make me suffer so," JB pleads as sincerely as he ever cried out for a woman's love.
