"Cold Sweat" is a song performed by James Brown and written with his bandleader Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis.
"[5] Arranger and co-composer Pee Wee Ellis recalled in an interview that [a]fter one of the shows, one night somewhere, James called me into the dressing room and grunted a bass line of a rhythmic thing (demonstrates), which turned out to be "Cold Sweat."
I was very much influenced by Miles Davis and had been listening to "So What" six or seven years earlier and that crept into the making of "Cold Sweat."
By the time we got the groove going, James showed up, added a few touches—changed the guitar part, which made it real funky—had the drummer do something different.
[6] Building on the innovations of Brown's earlier songs "Out of Sight" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "Cold Sweat" was a watershed event in the evolution of funk music.
"Cold Sweat" is the first recording in which Brown calls for a drum solo (with the famous exclamation "give the drummer some") from Clyde Stubblefield, beginning the tradition of rhythmic "breaks" that would become important in dance music and form the foundation of sampling.
Sometimes cited as the first true funk song,[8][9] "Cold Sweat" was recognized as a radical departure from pop music conventions at the time of its release.
[13] Brown would continue to develop the rhythmically intense, harmonically static template pioneered on "Cold Sweat" in later recordings such as "I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)", "I Got the Feelin'", "Mother Popcorn", "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine", and "Super Bad".
Like many of Brown's funk hits, "Cold Sweat" has been extensively sampled by hip hop DJs and producers.
"Cold Sweat" has been covered by a number of performers, notably by Mongo Santamaría on his album Soul Bag in 1968. with the James Brown Orchestra: 1.