Pee Wee Ellis - The Spirit of Christmas (Deluxe Edition) (2019) Hi Res

There are quite a few risks that a musician can expose in his business. An abrupt change in style or genre is one of the reasons, the decision to supply the formerly acoustic instrument with electricity as well as in the eighties, the transition from analog to digital. In some cases, even a new hairstyle is enough. However, the biggest risk, at least beyond smooth polished productions for a TV audience, was, is and will be the recording of a Christmas record. Wham's Last Christmas is one of the most successful songs of the duo, but also one of his most hated. And when Jimi Hendrix once played Little Drummer Boy, one dared to send the single only for free to the members of his fan club.

There are, however, glorious exceptions to every rule, and such a one has now transformed Pee Wee Ellis from the bold idea into the pleasing deed. On his new album The Spirit Of Christmas, the American bundles a good dozen widely known, but never heard before, Christmas carols to a bouquet, at which no cheesy Christmas baubles with trumpeting little angels disgust themselves. After all, Ellis was not the backbone of the James Brown Horns for years, and subsequently became a celebrated synonym for the real funky tunes worldwide, just to become sentimental now, at 72, for no reason at all. When Ellis celebrates Christmas, the Christmas tree has to be careful with Santa Claus in front of the dancing crowd. Unless Santa Claus has long since hung the wrong beard in the branches and is dancing.

When Pee Wee Ellis goes on tour with his first (and hopefully not the last) X-Mas CD in the month of December, he will give the Holy Fest a whole new soundtrack. And finally, the highest Christian festival does not shine in dimly lit candlelight, but is illuminated like a funky night in New Orleans, in which one becomes aware only the next morning of the fact to have become a witness of a truly unique party. Christmas 2013 could be the celebration of the decade. What nobody else would be tapping on the shoulder than Pee Wee Ellis.