Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – It's A Holiday Soul Party!

Vintage soulsters do a Christmas album – like you do.

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Given The Dap Kings’ love of vintage R&B tropes, it’s no surprise that they should have a crack at their own festive collection, just like their spiritual forefathers did. And sometimes, they really bring something special to the party. Live favourite No Chimneys In The Projects sees Jones’ charisma and lyrical wit produce a fine Christmas composition of their own, while the self-penned Eight Days Of Hannukah and Big Bulbs burst with horn-fattened grooves.

Elsewhere, though, the experiment can feel a little forced. The jazz-funk reading of Little Drummer Boy never really takes off, and the instrumental sleepwalk through God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is pure filler. But maybe we’re over-thinking this: the Ike & Tina-style upbeat reading of White Christmas would go down a storm at any festive bash, and you sense that a few drinks in on Christmas Eve, all this will make perfect sense.

Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock