Recently in 1970s Category

jolliesextra.jpgHey, remember Christmas Jollies? The Salsoul disco Christmas album from the late 1970s produced by Vincent Montana of MFSB fame? It's been reissued and remastered a number of times over the years, but for 2023 it's gone full box set edition, a 3-CD set featuring the original album, some outtakes, and an entire second album called Christmas Jollies II done by a different producer, but definitely in that 70s disco realm. I consider it a niche interest item myself, considering how cornball the original album was to my less mature ears, but given how the popular music scene of the last 20 years has consisted of young artists slicing and dicing various versions of past musical genres, maybe we're due for a suburban couples-swapping soundtrack revival. Your call.

santafunk3.jpgAs much as I'm a sucker for old-school soul records, you'd think I would have known about this series of albums based on flea-market rescues of seriously obscure soul Christmas records before this. So I'm indebted to friend of the site Sean Delany, who broke his skein of painstakingly compiled and art-directed holiday mix discs in 2015 because he was busy curating this third collection in the series for Tramp Records. Sean's detailed liner notes indicate that at least some of these records were vanity releases, on a level with all those indie punk rock singles that never got beyond 1,000 copies and were probably only heard regionally in their day. Cleveland Robinson's "Xmas Time Is Here Again," for example, was released on Nosnibor Records, and you don't need to be a fan of word games to work out how the label got its name. Despite the low-budget origins of these songs and the herculean effort to make decent quality reproductions of these ancient vinyl artifacts, there's enthusiasm and spirit in all these recordings. My favorites are "Dear Santa" by Syng McGowan & the Fanettes, "Sock It To 'Em Santa" by Joe Shinall, "Happy Birthday Jesus" by Sam Sweetsinger Bell, the smoking instrumental "Santa Soul" by Rocki Lane and The Gross Group, the synth-bass-led funk workouts "Black (Soul) Christmas" by Timi Terrific & the Redheads and "Disco Claus" by The Bionic I, and the almost garage-soul "Santa's New Bag" by Rudi and the Rain Dearz. Definitely the best historical collection I've encountered this year, even if the Grammy Award voters haven't seen fit to nominate it.

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This 2010 two-disc collection of James Brown's 1960s holiday music released on King Records is the perfect historical document for the Godfather's classic Christmas sides, three albums and a couple of non-LP singles, plus single versions of album cuts. (CD's are out of print, but a full download remains available. You can distill all of this into a single-disc collection, James Brown's Funky Christmas. Also, word has it that the original albums will be out on vinyl for the 2015 holidays.) The first album was 1966's James Brown and His Famous Flames Sing Christmas Songs, with James credited as co-writer on the majority of songs, including "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year," "Sweet Little Baby Boy (Parts 1 & 2)," "This Is My Lonely Christmas (Parts 1 & 2)," "Signs of Christmas" and "Merry Christmas I Love You." James also did two versions of "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," "Please Come Home For Christmas," Billy Ward's "Christmas In Heaven" and "Merry Christmas Baby." In 1968 A Soulful Christmas introduced James' all-time classic "Santa Claus Go Straight To the Ghetto" and also featured the title song, "Santa Claus Santa Claus," "Santa Claus Gave Me a Brand New Start," "Christmas Is Coming," "Let's Unite the Whole World at Christmas," "Tit For Tat (Ain't No Taking Back,)" and the instrumentals "In the Middle," "You Know It," and "Believers Shall Enjoy (Non Believers Shall Suffer)." Oddly, "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" was on this album as well. The third album, 1970's Hey America, was written almost entirely by Brown associate Nat Jones, and the title song was a kind of holiday-themed protest number with an almost rock-styled rhythm. Also here are the ballads "Merry Christmas My Baby and a Very Happy New Year," "A Lonely Little Boy Around One Christmas Toy" and "Santa Claus Is Defiinitely Here To Stay," the driving "Go Power At Christmas Time," the funk-styled "Christmas Is Love," and the oddity "My Rapp," a letter to an estranged lover. For 1969 James released a single, "It's Christmas Time (Parts 1 & 2)," a ballad on which James also played organ, and the other singles included here were alternate versions of album cuts. The title of this complete album is misleading, however, as James released Merry Christmas Album in 1999, with 11 more songs, none repeated from the past.
chess.jpgThis compilation of Christmas songs covers 1959 to 1969 with artists on the famous Chicago blues label Chess and its various subsidiaries, featuring Chuck Berry's double-sided triumph of "Run Rudolph Run" and "Merry Christmas Baby." Jazz, gospel and soul are also represented with the O'Jays, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Rotary Connection, Salem Travelers, Soul Stirrers, the Moonglows and the Meditation Singers. Good mix of originals and traditional tunes, and great performances. I'm pretty sure this record originally appeared on vinyl in the 1970s and was issued on CD around 1989 with all the original artwork intact.

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