ALBUM: Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings ‘It’s a Holiday Soul Party’

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Maybe you’re supposed to play this LP while inebriated and full of turkey after the Christmas lunch that looms for us all at the year’s end. It’s A Holiday Soul Party is a Christmas record, you see; very American, very wholesome and pitched at the pre-Christmas market to capitalise on the seasonal sales. Its makers have their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks too. Well, at least I hope they do, because – with the cover evoking memories of Bing Crosby, wreathed as he once might have been in the glow of a parlour as snow fell beyond the panes, Yuletide peace enfolding the scene – one could take this musical offering as (forgive me for saying it) post-modern. It’s eminently funky, produced with polish but, sadly, is as soulful as the commercialised Christian festival it associates itself with.

It is, therefore, somewhat uninspired, music made by rote, a bit like a studio jam committed to tape, the session work nonpareil, the musical pedigree apparent, the funk ever so Mizell-Brothers-tinged-with-Erma-Franklin-funking-it-up-with-The-Blackbyrds with a heavy modern dose of Mark Ronson-style knob twiddling. But where’s the much-needed grit of modernity?

Instead, you get an easily digestible slice of how the great soul-funk of the late 1960s once sounded, but by no stretch of the imagination is it the same thing. This is ersatz soul for a generation that has lost its soul. That doesn’t include Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings, mind you, but Joe Public who appears content to cut ties with a great American musical past to make do with the arid present. It has been made for him.

Kicking off with [8 Days Of Hanukkah’, ‘Ain’t No Chimneys In The Projects’ (assuming Middle America still knows what The Projects are), ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Just Another Christmas Song’ (because, yes, this is just another Christmas album), the band is tighter than the proverbial two coats of paint before more familiar territory is covered with ‘Silent Night’. Then ‘Funky Little Drummer Boy’ arrives in a very funky early JB way before the LP slides to a close with a ponderous instrumental version of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gents’.

Alright, it’s a record no less kitsch and commercial than James Brown’s, Elvis’s or Phil Spector’s Christmas albums but without the same injection of irony, although when Sharon sings (on ‘Big Bulbs’) “Baby you’ve got them big bulbs, flashing in your window tonight” she manages to raise a laugh, intentionally or otherwise.

Buried within this record there may be a genuine religious fervour behind these songs, some vestige of the gospel flame heating the vocal, but somehow the poses struck on the front cover make me think there isn’t. I like my soul soulful and my funk so dirty it’s going to ruin my suit, but despite the production gloss and the brilliance of Ms. King’s assured vocal, I’m going to take the needle off the record and, instead, put on some Betty Davis. And I’ll pass on the mince pies too.

It’s A Holiday Soul Party is released on 30th October via Daptone Records.

Jason Holmes

@JasonAHolmes