A Huggy Bear Christmas

After having appeared in several blaxploitation movies such as Shaft, Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, a small role in Karel Reisz's The Gambler got Antonio Fargas the part of the flamboyant informant Huggy Bear on the immensely popular TV series Starsky & Hutch. Shortly after the show folded in 1979, Dutch producer Ton "Shell" Schellekens, a former drummer with Netherbeat bands Brainbox, In Crowd, Big Wheel and Drama, summoned the lanky New York actor to the recording studio to lay down this rare Christmas single which saw the light of day in October 1980. While the a-side sounds disastrously like the run-of-the-mill disco stuff the Dutch used to churn out at the time (anyone remember Luv?), the b-side is a slightly funkier affair with Fargas telling a ghetto Xmas story over a fat, bass-laden backing track. I have no idea if Fargas ever recorded again, but Schellekens went on to become one of Holland's foremost producers, working with bands like Gruppo Sportivo, Herman Brood & The Wild Romance and Golden Earring with whom he recorded Cut which spawned the international hit single "Twilight Zone".