1956.5.4 - 2016.11.18
By the sound of them, you would think Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings started making funk-threaded soul music together in the 1960s. Few devotedly retro acts are as convincing. Few singers as skilled as Sharon Jones at stuffing notes with ache and meaning might be willing to invest in a sound so fully occupied by the likes of Bettye LaVette and Tina Turner in the Ike years, too. But what Jones brings to the funkified table has legs of its own — eight of them, to be exact — and they belong to Binky Griptite, Bugaloo Velez, Homer Steinweiss, and Dave Guy — her Dap-Kings.Jones, like James Brown, was born in Augusta, GA; there she sang in her church choir, and from fellow parishioners picked up the kind of back-patting she needed to convince her to go mainstream. As a teenager, she moved with her family to Brooklyn, where she immersed herself in 1970s disco and funk with an eye toward cutting a record of her own. Instead, studios came calling and with them steady work — by her twenties, Jones was turning in backup vocals for gospel, soul, disco and blues artists, most of it uncredited. In the 80s, however, Jones sound was deemed unfashionable, and instead of pushing ahead with her soul divas dream she went back to church singing. She also took a job as a corrections officer at New Yorks Rykers Island. It wouldnt be until 1996 that Desco Records would rediscover Jones sweat-basted, lived-in talent. With that labels house band, the Soul Providers, Jones released several singles in the late 90s; their warmth and genuineness propelled the act across the Atlantic, and Jones picked up a moniker — the queen of funk — that stuck. Jones released her first full-length with the Dap-Kings, Dap Dippin with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, after signing with Daptone Records in 2002. Years of touring behind it, as well as cutting singles with other artists (including Greyboy) ensued. In 2005, Jones reteamed with the Dap-Kings for the winking groovefest that is Naturally. With it, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings proved that, no matter how late in the game, they are hell-bent on breathing life back into boiled-down funk and soul.