Christmas Jollies, The Salsoul Orchestra (Salsoul)

The 1970s was a real love-hate decade for a lot of us musically, in that there was a lot of great music around, but almost none of it hit the charts because of the double-barreled assault of corporate rock and disco. The Salsoul Orchestra was the brainchild of Vincent Montana Jr., who worked behind the scenes on the many disco releases of the Salsoul label. Since everybody from Barbra Streisand to Wayne Newton to Blondie was making disco records in the second half of the decade, a disco Christmas album was inevitable, and this is it. There are a few original tunes, but the second half of this program is taken up by a lengthy "Christmas Medley" of familiar carols in disco, followed by a "New Year's Medley" that starts with Montana's "Auld Lang Disco" and segues, inexplicably, into "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover," "Alabama Jubilee," "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" and "God Bless America." You twentysomethings may find this quaint, a lot of rock fans are already blaring "DISCO SUCKS!" at the top of their lungs, and I say it's so bad it's almost worthwhile. It's been reissued several times since 1976 under different titles with different covers, on vinyl and CD, but the ones I've seen always seem to have a back view of a woman wearing a T-shirt that says "Dance Your As (sic) to Salsoul" on it, with badly airbrushed fur around the bottom to cover up what once was her bare butt.