You absolutely don’t need to be a holiday music lover to fall in love with the music spilling out over these James Brown records. Most of these tracks are original compositions that hold their own against many of the grooves that Brown was recording during this high-water mark of his career.

With bonus tracks galore and fantastic liner notes by Alan Leeds—Brown's former publicist and tour manager who also wrote the original liner notes to the Hey America album—this is a must-have, even if you have to give yourself a well-earned, early musical present this year!