Overview
"Cold Sweat" is a song performed by James Brown and written with his bandleader Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis. Brown recorded it in May 1967. An edited version of "Cold Sweat" released as a two-part single on King Records was a No. 1 R&B hit, and reached number seven on the Pop Singles chart. The complete recording, more than seven minutes long, was included on an album of the same name.
Brown's lyrics describe how his woman's affections make him "break out in a cold sweat."
In 2016 James Brown's "Cold Sweat-Part 1" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Creation
"Cold Sweat" developed from an earlier James Brown R&B song, "I Don't Care", recorded in 1962 and first released on the album Tour the U.S.A.. According to Brown, "it was a slow, bluesy tune then. It was good that way, but I was really getting into my funk bag now, and it became an almost completely different tune, except for the lyrics." Arranger and co-composer Pee Wee Ellis recalled in an interview that
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