SANTA CLAUS GO STRAIGHT TO THE GHETTO

Celebrating JB's Xmas anthems and my neighbours' Xmas lights!

Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto features on James Brown’s 1968 album A Soulful Christmas. It was Brown’s second Christmas album, following 1966’s James Brown Sings Christmas Songs, and would be followed by 1970’s Hey America. The ‘66 album is very straight, James singing hymns in his inimitable style, and not very interesting. A Soulful Christmas is much stronger, its standout tune being Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto – a socially conscious Xmas tune: is it the first? Its a great song, James noting how poor children shouldn’t be overlooked as the JBs groove.

Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto was written by Peewee Ellis (James’ saxophonist and band leader, Hank Ballard (veteran R&B singer and writer of The Twist) and Charles Bobbit (who, alongside Bud Hobgood and Nat Jones – none of whom I know anything about – had a hand in writing several of the songs on A Soulful Christmas). The album also featured Brown’s recent hit, Say It Loud (I’m Black & I’m Proud), which was (and is) a song for all seasons.

The chap out front was crossing the road when he saw me get off my bike and aim to take a photo. “Do you like it?” he asked. “Fabulous,” I replied. He smiled and said, “thank you. Its her indoors that does it all.”

1970’s Hey America album opens with the title track which is a genuinely urgent piece of music, an Xmas song that doesn’t mention Xmas in its title. Its fast and furious funk with James calling on Americans, now its Christmas time, to love one another. James keeps repeating a line about “a million peace signs”, which might be seen as the famously conservative politics-endorsing singer criticising the anti-Vietnam war movement. But the lyric doesn’t develop and JB then suggests how people must love one another, reminding us he’s Black and proud, then going off into chanting expressions in different languages (surely a show of unity towards different races/nations). Nate Jones would write every song on Hey America, none of them matching the title track, obviously James’ man for an Xmas anthem.

James Brown stands as one of the 20th Century’s most remarkable artists, making stunning records at different times in his career, the 1965 – 1975 era finding him at his most fluid and creative. Christmas records have long done boffo business in the US so its unsurprising that Brown, who then commanded a large Black American audience, decided to get in on the act. While Charles Brown had led the way for R&B Xmas anthems with Merry Christmas Baby back in 1947 – James delivers a delightfully gravelly version of this classic on A Soulful Christmas – but James was the first to add funk to the festivities. Today, JB’s best Xmas songs still sound so good. None better than Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto.

This is simple and eloquent. Peace - if the world could have that as its collective Xmas present it would be wonderful.

I got to thinking about this tune the other night when cycling around my neighbourhood. I’ve mentioned before that I live in the south east London neighbourhood of Peckham. When I shifted here in the 90s Peckham was a byword for poverty and urban deprivation: the 2000 killing of Damilola Taylor, a ten year old Nigerian schoolboy, by a gang of feral teenagers signalled SE15 as a no-go area. A ghetto? That’s how it was often described, although I think ‘deprived’ is a more accurate term – Peckham has more council housing than any other borough in the UK and the people who live in council flats don’t tend to see them as “ghetto housing”. Instead, we take a pride in living in affordable social housing with neighbours from across the globe. This noted, some children here won’t be receiving many gifts on the 25^th due to straitened family circumstances – this is a low income/benefits neighbourhood – so Brown’s message about giving poor kids presents continues to resonate.

Somewhat paradoxically, in the 2010s central Peckham (around Peckham Rye rail station) became a hipster hangout with chic bars and art galleries. These new Peckhamites might feel a voyeuristic thrill in entering a socially deprived neighbourhood but they tend to keep to their own – expensive bars, restaurants and art dealers are there to cater to them. I live a good distance from the station on a council estate next to the Old Kent Road, a neighbourhood dubbed “little Lagos” due to the concentration of Nigerian residents and businesses. So far the hipsters have kept away.

This epic endeavour is the largest set of Xmas lights in Peckham. The Mustafa family on the Aylesbury Estate have been doing the lights for the past 27 years - they started out exhibiting such to cheer up their son Alex, who had been diagnosed with leukaemia aged 4. Alex had a marrow transplant aged 11 and is now 29 - the Mustafas’ use the lights to highlight the Anthony Nolan Trust (that works with patients and stem cell donors) and asks visitors to make a donation to the trust: https: www.anthonynolan.org

As every Xmas a handful of my neighbours go all out with the Xmas lights, I decided to celebrate their efforts on this post – as a cyclist I love how, when I’m heading home at night, their lights shimmer and sparkle through the deep darkness. I’m not religious and childfree so can’t get too excited about Big Baby Jesus Day, but I do love the way people find a unity of sorts in this mid-winter celebration, how we wish one another “merry Christmas” and “a happy new year.” Its as if we soften a little, let some light into our shells. What a wonderful world? Indeed.

Here’s the Mustafa’s garden - blinded by the lights!

Thank you to my neighbours who brightened our community with their Xmas lights and smiles and greetings. And thanks to all my Yak readers – here’s wishing y’all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Writing this post I recalled that JB died on Xmas day 2006. Hey America, its Christmas time - what will 2025 hold in store? Love one another as its going to get rough…