I’ve got to admit to smiling long and out loud when I began researching Rufus Thomas’ Christmas throwdown “I’ll Be Your Santa Claus” and read this in the booklet accompanying The Complete Stax-Volt Singles Volume 3: “The song was co-written by Thomas and an exotic dancing friend of his, the latter using the pseudonym Oriell Roberts.” Who else but Rufus Thomas would work with a stripper to write a tune for the holiday that celebrates the Christ child’s birth? That’s our Rufus. That sounds just like him.

Musically, “I’ll Be Your Santa Claus” sounds just like Rufus too. It overflows with “borrowed” references on the subject, most quite familiar: The “Deck the Halls” horn chart that busts this baby open, the piano break’s twinkling wink to the melody of “Jingle Bells,” even Rufus’ opening lines pilfered from “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Every hook bounces up and down on a mothership of a front and center bassline that throbs as virulently as a teenager’s hormonal urges, serving up funky punctuation against Rufus’ staccato rhyming and riffing that sounds interested in unwrapping more than presents and stuffing more than stockings, if you know what he means: “I’ll slide down your chimney and bring ya lots of joy / What I got for you, momma, it ain’t just a toy…”

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.