STACK NZ August 2016 Issue 76

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W hen opportunity came knocking,
Sharon Jones was waiting to open the
door. She was 40 and had been ready
for decades.
No surprise then that once her career
took off she released albums with the titles
I Learned the Hard Way and Give the People
What They Want.
Jones – now 60, half a dozen albums to her
name, Grammy nominated and the subject of
a recent film festival documentary Miss Sharon
Jones! – brings a world of experience to the
songs and the stage, and if anyone can dig
deep into their soul it is her.
She was born in South Carolina (the youngest
of six) and the family moved to Bed-Stuy in
Brooklyn, New York City, when she was young.
The house was full of kids and soul-funk (James
Brown a favourite) and like most people her
age she sang gospel in church. Also steeped in
the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Sam Cooke, Otis
Redding and other classic black soul and jazz
singers, she started doing session
work but also held down day jobs.
They were interesting of
themselves: She worked as a prison
officer at notorious Rikers Island
jail and later as an armed guard for
Wells Fargo. You’d have to guess the
lady can handle herself.
Her break came in the mid 90s
when she sang on a session for
soul-funk singer Lee Fields (himself
getting a late-in-life career boost
after decades on the road). On the
strength of her showing she was
invited to record some tracks for
singles.
But it would be another seven
years before opportunity turned
up on her doorstep in the form
of Daptone Records, a new
label formed by people she knew and using
musicians – soon to be known as the Dap-Kings
– she’d already worked with.
Jon Spencer (of the Blues Explosion) who
recently recorded in the Daptone studios in
Brooklyn says of the place: “When you walk in
– no offense to Daptone – it’s pretty funky, they
built it themselves. It’s part of a house and it’s
not a pretty place or a plush studio, it’s pretty
small.
“But you’ve just got to listen to the records
they make there, they make great records and
know how to capture a live sound.”
And that perfectly suited Jones who can
channel the spirits of Memphis soul, Chicago
blues and Detroit rock’n’soul into an amalgam
which conjures up the past but sounds utterly
contemporary and also timeless.
The documentary Miss Sharon
Jones! – the soundtrack includes
one previously unreleased track –
turns the cameras onto a key year
in her recent career when, after
all the belated successes, she
was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer and had to endure bouts of
chemotherapy.
Yet, heroically, she continued to
perform when she could – despite
the loss of her hair she wouldn’t
wear wigs – and her undeniable
inner strength after decades of hard
knocks got her through.
In the same year she was
recording the Grammy-nominated
Give The People What They Want
her mother, with whom she lived,
died… as did the brother of her
saxophonist Neal Sugarman in the
Dap-Kings, musicians who are as
much family as a band.
The complete Sharon Jones and
the Dap-Kings catalogue is now
readily available, including Soul
Time! which collected rare singles
and b-sides.
Oh, and that previously
unreleased song on the soundtrack?
It is I’m Still Here.
Sharon Jones won’t be the last to
distill soul, blues and funk, but she
may well be the last woman to have
that link back to James Brown and
the original rhythm and blues styles
of the 60s which inspired her and a
generation.
As she sings in Miss Sharon
Jones! on Longer and Stronger,
“fifty years of soul gone by, and fifty
more to come”.
For more interviews, overviews
and reviews by Graham Reid see:
She worked as a prison officer at
Rikers Island jail and later as an
armed guard... You’d have to guess
the lady can handle herself
visit MUSIC FEATURE
16 AUGUST 2016
MUSIC
Graham Reid considers the soul and spirit of Sharon Jones.
THE