Forget for a second that James Brown more-or-less single-handedly (ok, Bootsy, Maceo, Catfish, Fred Wesley, etc. deserve some credit too) created the genres of r&b, soul, funk and rap, and forget that James had more chart hits than anybody other than Elvis Presley (that's 129 chart hits for James for those of you keeping score at home).
I remember when James died. I remember sitting in front of the TV and crying on Christmas day. Looking back, it almost seems a fitting tribute for James to have died on a day he contributed so much to. Among James' best tracks were those he recorded for Christmas, both as lp tracks and as holiday-only singles. "Santa Claus, Go Straight To the Ghetto" is probably his most famous Christmas track, but he gets into some hard funk on "Hey America (It's Christmas Time)" and "Soulful Christmastree." Even "Go Power at Christmas Time" is pretty funky. Brown gets political on "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something this Year." He even gets soulful on Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song." Criminally out of print, Santa's Got A Brand New Bag was a Christmas best of that did justice to the breadth of Brown's Christmas releases. If you can find a copy, covet it.
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