Merry Christmas! Elliott Yamin: 'Stay humbled, stay grounded. Just be yourself.' James Brown, Rest In Peace, 'Godfather of Soul'

As I listen to Elliott Yamin's marvelous version of Donny Hathaway's 'This Christmas', I wanted to wish all the soul survivors a wonderful Christmas. I was shocked and saddened by the passing of the late, great Godfather of Soul, James Brown. What a loss. What an amazing, soulful performer. I remember seeing JB live many times..the first time was at a beautiful outdoor jazz festival one summer in Nice, France. James was jammin and rockin da house so hot it was standing room only..this was all outside, mind you..it was so packed and soulful and live we were standin on the elevated trunks of the olive trees to check out da Godfather doin his thang!..oh man, it was so damn fine! What a performance! JB was funkin! And the band was so tight! It was soo da bomb! And folks had climbed up into the high branches of the olive trees to get a better look..the Godfather was rockin it so hard all the trees on the hillside were shakin as everybody jammed and moved and dug the great JB..so truly awesome! Just a few years ago we drove up one glorious, beautiful perfect day to a sold out benefit to see James Brown at the Count Basie theatre..my man hadn't ever seen the Godfather, and I said, oh, man, we gotta go! It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. Today, Richmond.com recognized the best quotes of 2006..at the top of the list was Elliott Yamin: "Stay humbled, stay grounded. Just be yourself." Words to live by. Spoken by the soulful, humble and extraordinarily talented Elliott Yamin who won our hearts with his moving beautiful tribute to the late, great, remarkable Donny Hathaway. Elliott's wonderful mom, Claudette, also had a memorable quote recalling 'her son's most rebellious stunt as a teenager': "He wasn't a bad kid ever. Elliott dropped out of school in the 10th grade. I allowed him to drop out so I would not be arrested for allowing him to be truant. But the deal was, you drop out of school, you go work at McDonald's because that's the best place you'll ever work without an education. So he did. And one night, Elliott didn't come home, so I locked him out of the apartment. He actually slept on top of the washing machines."