Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings projected the impression that their funk-threaded soul had originated in the 1960s, and few acts devoted to retro styles matched their persuasive accuracy. Equally rare were vocalists of Jones’s caliber, capable of packing notes with raw ache and significance, who would fully embrace a style already claimed by Bettye LaVette and by Tina Turner during the Ike years. Yet the funk Jones supplied possessed its own foundation—precisely eight legs, supplied by Binky Griptite, Bugaloo Velez, Homer Steinweiss, and Dave Guy, collectively known as the Dap-Kings.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, the same city as James Brown, Jones began singing in her local church choir, where parishioners offered the encouragement that later propelled her toward secular music. During her teenage years she relocated with her family to Brooklyn and absorbed the disco and funk of the 1970s, initially hoping to issue her own recordings. Studios instead offered consistent session work, so by her twenties she supplied uncredited backing vocals for numerous gospel, soul, disco, and blues artists. When the 1980s rendered her style unfashionable, Jones abandoned commercial ambitions, returned to church singing, and accepted a position as a corrections officer at New York’s Rikers Island.

Only in 1996 did Desco Records locate Jones and her lived-in, sweat-soaked voice. Backed by the label’s house band, the Soul Providers, she issued several singles in the late 1990s whose warmth and authenticity carried the project to Europe, earning her the enduring nickname “queen of funk.” After signing with Daptone Records in 2002, Jones released her debut full-length album, Dap Dippin’ with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Extensive touring followed, along with additional singles cut alongside artists such as Greyboy. She reunited with the Dap-Kings in 2005 for Naturally and followed that release two years later with 100 Days, 100 Nights. Jones also appeared briefly in the film The Great Debaters, portraying the singer Lila. Another studio album, I Learned the Hard Way, arrived in 2010.

In 2013 Jones disclosed her cancer diagnosis, first affecting the bile ducts and later identified as stage-two pancreatic cancer, yet she maintained a performance schedule whenever treatment allowed, occasionally appearing onstage bald after chemotherapy. Late that year she proved sufficiently recovered to finish recording the next Dap-Kings project, Give the People What They Want, issued in 2014. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple premiered the documentary Miss Sharon Jones! at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival; Jones attended the screening and, after revealing the cancer’s return, declared, “I’m gonna keep fighting, we got a long way to go.” In October 2015 the group issued the holiday collection It’s a Holiday Soul Party. As the documentary prepared for wider theatrical release, Daptone Records brought out the companion soundtrack album Miss Sharon Jones! in August 2016, featuring key performances plus the new autobiographical track “I’m Still Here.” Jones succumbed to cancer at age 60 in November 2016. Shortly before her death she completed vocals for one final album with the Dap-Kings; Soul of a Woman appeared in November 2017.