It’s A Holiday Soul Party
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
(Daptone Records)
Three-and-a-half stars
From Elvis to Sinatra, rafts of otherwise-respectable musicians have tried their hand at festive albums, most often with embarrassing results.
However, James Brown proved that Christmas can be cool as well as kitschy – his 1995 cult compilation Funky Christmas, which includes tracks from three festive records by the Godfather of Soul between 1966 and 1970, is an annual fixture on ironic hipster playlists worldwide.
It is this mood of good-time groove that old-school US funk revivalists Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are channelling here. Their It's A Holiday Soul Party combines funky re-workings of classics and carols, alongside some seriously smoking originals.
When it comes to the latter, the album opens pointedly with the storming strut of 8 Days (of Hanukkah), the first of many vintage soul pastiches, served complete with gunshot horn stabs and reverb-heavy call-and-response passages.
Likely to get most clicks is the sultry, socially conscious Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects, on which Jones channels a Winehouse-esque croon over smart brass riffs and syrupy strings.
The mellow, 1970s West Coast, pre-disco head-nodder Just Another Christmas Song is good enough to listen to any time of year.
There's a throwaway charm to the cheeky Big Bulbs, a stripped-back gospel-infused chorus stacked over just chiming sleigh bells, swing guitar and seductive trumpet ornaments.
Even more fun are the covers. Bing Crosby's White Christmas and Silver Bells are both transformed into upbeat, early Marvin Gaye-era Motown R&B vamps.
Silent Night is recast as smoky, bar-room blues, which sounds anything but festive.
Please Come for Christmas is served in the style of Etta James, a big, bawling ballad destined to kickstart a hundred sleepy slow-dances in front rooms around the world.
Most remarkable of all is Funky Little Drummer Boy, with the standard's irritating "rum pum-pum-pum" refrain transplanted over a lean Meters-style fat-packed funk, with horns doubling the melody effectively in the chorus.
The 11 tracks whizz by – only one clocks in at more than four minutes – closing with a Ronson-aping instrumental arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gents, the interwoven layers of burping horns, sounds like a virtual Version out-take. Who knew you could dance to a 16th-century carol? It's this mix of familiar festive elements, with a sense of assured artistry, that elevate the 11-track set above the average stocking filler.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
