I’m sad about James Brown. I’m even sadder that I couldn’t go to the funeral, which, according to my friend Carol Delgado, was the uptown event of the decade. Carol bought a new hat on e-Bay for the occasion. She claims Harlem is the only remaining part of Manhattan that isn’t Gapped-out. Evidently you can still get dressed up if you’re headed north of 125th Street. You can pull out the rhinestone costume jewelry, wear a ruffled suit in a bright color, toss a feather boa over your shoulder, and kick up your heels, even at a funeral. Carol was most impressed by the display of flowing white fur coats, the kind that you absolutely cannot find at Eddie Bauer.

I think James Brown would have been honored that Carol attended, and I’m quite sure he would have approved of her hat.

On this same theme, my friend and fellow Piano Girl Emilee Floor was hired to play solo piano for a wedding where the bride wanted to hear James Brown’s “I Got You” as the bridal theme song. Emilee, a white Greek-American girl who plays swingin’ jazz, gave it her best shot. At the rehearsal, the bride expressed some dismay that Emilee didn’t scream like James. Shaken, Emilee retreated to the coat room where she practiced a number of white Greek girl screams. YEOWW!!! The bride was satisfied, and even danced, I assume with the groom. We Piano Girls are always astounded when someone dances to solo piano. Anyway, two days later James died, and now poor Emilee thinks maybe her scream caused his demise.

I met James once, sort of. In1984, I had a two week engagement at a posh hotel in White Plains, New York. I was singing and playing Misty. Having just crooned the “look at me” part, I heard a scream (YEOWW!) from the other side of the room. Startled, I looked up and there he was, wearing sequins, one of those long flowing coats, and a gangster hat. He stared at me, I stared at him, he waved at the crowd, and then I sang, “I’m as helpless as kitten up a tree.” Then he left. I regret now that I didn’t scream back.

In December, while Emilee was accompanying bridal line dances (YEOWW!) in Salt Lake City, I was playing for the Christmas festivities at the German castle where I have a steady job. It was a sold out weekend, and very beautiful in a European Christmas kind of way. This place reeks of good taste—no inflatable snowmen, no colored flashing lights or wicker reindeer, no Jingle Bell Rock, live nativity scenes, or eggnog. I play for the Christmas weekend every year, and it’s so charming, I don’t mind working over the holidays.

On Christmas Eve there were three wonderfully eccentric ladies in attendance and each of them asked me to escort them to their tables after I’d played the cocktail hour. Frau Ulla von Etwas (I’ve changed names and identifying details) is a 94 year old who everyone claims is a former first lady of another European country. She gave me a very old pearl and diamond encrusted brooch in the shape of a piano. I stabbed myself in the chest trying to pin it to my evening gown, but seeing her face light up made up for the, uh, pinprick. Frau Hover (the Lady Bracknell of Germany) was draped in diamonds and champagne colored silk, with her hair cranked to astonishing heights. And the fur-clad Frau von Taschitski, teetered next to the piano during the cocktail hour and sang O Tannenbaum at the top of her lungs, in spite of the palsy that threatened to make her tumble to the marble floor. God bless her. If you ask me, this is Christmas spirit.

We also were visited by the Lonely Spaniard, who shows up every year and stands in the corner by himself. He drinks Fanta and this makes me feel bad. We had a nice assortment of beautifully-dressed gay men this year, several well-behaved dogs wearing festive collars, and a couple of less well-behaved children wearing velvet jumpers. The kids raced around and threatened to trip waiters balancing trays of champagne and fish-on-a-cracker tidbits. At the designated time, the staff marched down the grand staircase behind Santa (played by Tobias, our only stout waiter), the assistant director greeted everyone, Tobias read a Christmas story, then I conducted and accompanied the sing-a-long. Our two numbers, Tannenbaum and Silent Night were heartfelt, bold, and actually quite musical, in a German march kind of way.

Like always, I spent New Year's Eve inside the castle's gourmet restaurant (usually I'm out in the lobby). The guests in that restaurant tend to be on the serious side. Since they’re paying a small fortune for a seven course meal, this is understandable. Hard to be jolly when you're forking over that much dough for pigeon mousse and scallop cappuccino. FYI: this is one scallop on a stick balanced over a lemon-grass frothy soup and yes, they really call it scallop cappuccino. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

So I sat in the corner in a ridiculous ballgown and played tinka-tinka-tinka, being careful to fade the music out whenever Monsieur described each beautiful course as it arrived at the tables. I’m used to staying in the background, but this New Year’s Eve job is always one of those gigs where I cannot for one minute forget that the food is the star. For me, the highlight of the evening always takes place right after the fifth course, when the guests start to get ants in their pants and head into the lobby to get down and boogie. I am a big fan of the Titan of Industry Hoe-down, and I look forward to it every December 31st. The slick dance band hired every year, led by a handsome and talented young musician named Thomas Prinz, played crowd pleasers like Smooth Operator, Celebration, and my favorite, a disco duck medley of Gershwin songs, culminating in, you guessed it, a Gloria Gaynor version of "Summertime." This year the band had a girl singer whose name was GO-GO. I really liked her because she had an afro, which you don't see very often in Germany.

My husband John had the pleasure of working (also at the castle) with an excellent guitarist named Rolf Marx. They played in the brasserie on the lower level of the hotel where the meals were affordable and the people, as far as I could tell, appeared to be quite normal. Management arranged for John and me to have dinner together (along with Rolf, the Prinz, and Go-Go), which was a gracious gesture since it meant taking 30 minutes off right in the middle of the night.

We finished playing around 11:45, when all the guests left the various restaurants to dance and watch the enormous firework display. John and I booked out of there to make it home to the kids. We thought they'd be nervous, what with all the fireworks. Private use of explosives is legal in this country, and most of our conservative neighbors turn into pyromaniacs at this time of year. What better time to play with dynamite, than after you’ve had a few drinks? But the kids were sitting at the dining table doing craft projects and drinking ginger ale. Curtis was working on a website for himself and had made a series of short films. Julia spent the evening doing collage art, mostly with cutouts of pigs and dogs.

I had three weeks off to recover from all the holiday hoopla, and I took the train to Paris with John who was performing with Bireli Lagrenne, the gypsy guitarist, who plays more notes in a second than I play in an entire set.

Since then, I’ve been finishing my novel, taking care of my family, trying to figure out how to make scallop cappuccino, and playing my steady weekend gigs at the castle. It’s a quiet life right now, quite a contrast to the 2006 book tour whirlwind, and I’m enjoying staying put, catching up with the news, and spending time with friends.

Here’s to 2007. Happy New Year. YEOWWW!

Robin Goldsby is the author of PIANO GIRL: A MEMOIR