“WE HAD A DANCE!”

Words: Julie Mondor

Sharon Jones of the Dap-Kings

Something happens to the room when this band hits the stage. The Dap-Kings warm up the audience with their rolling rhythms and horn-heavy instrumentation, building anticipation for their vocalist, Sharon Jones, to finally slide onto the stage. Sharon is a small woman with a big voice—and an even bigger heart to house the soul that rises from her body and rains down on our yearning ears. This funk sister’s ability to touch the audience goes beyond her arresting vocals. Her commitment to performance enraptures us; when Sharon takes the stage, she takes charge of the room. When she cries, “we had a dance,” and her audience excitedly waits to see her do the steps, heartbeats beat to her rhythm, and even the most reserved feel compelled to move their bodies—and souls—at her bidding.

The dance moves that Sharon shows the audience, such as “the Electric Boogaloo,” “the Funky Four Corners,” or my favorite, “Tighten Up,” are classics from the ’60s and ’70s.“Growing up in the ’60s, all we listened to was funk and soul and r ’n’ b. I'm talking Aretha, James Brown, The Temptations, Otis Redding, you name it, whatever was out there I listened to it coming up as a kid.” Some call her the Queen of Funk, others the female James Brown.  She’s been likened to many soul singers, such as Marva Whitney, but the one vocalist she identifies with is Tina Turner: “she sings like a man, I sing like a man. Her great presence on stage inspires me, and she’s been through a lot of heartbreak like I have.”

It is all too appropriate that Sharon was born and raised in James Brown’s hometown of Augusta, Georgia, and later moved to New York.  With a stage presence that could even show up the Godfather of Funk himself, Sharon quickly went from the Sunday gospel choir to centre stage as the lead singer of many upstart funk bands.  She was soon opening for leading soul acts, including the Four Tops, Peaches and Herb, The Drifters, and Maceo Parker.

Over the years, Sharon developed her sweet smoky voice and honed her talent for working the crowd. Her vocal skills have been in demand by numerous types of musical acts, from gospel and blues sessions, to pop ballads and dance music diva sessions. In the late ’90s, Sharon finally found her niche with the soul and funk purists of Desco Records in New York, where she recorded the singles for which she has become well known.

The Dap-Kings

Even without Sharon’s vocal appeal, her backing band, the Dap-Kings can stand on their own funky feet. This band is made up of musicians from the Soul Providers, Sugarman 3, The Mighty Imperials, and the Afrobeat powerhouse, Antibalas. The band makes an impression with their well-cut suits and synchronized swaying. Adding to their sophistication is guitarist Binky Griptite’s occasional emceeing, when he eloquently introduces Sharon and the other band members. Homer “Funky-Foot” Jenkins’ rhythms on drums are so tight they’ll raise any DJ into beat-matching heaven. Percussions are also spiced with Bugaloo Velez’s work on congas; Otis Youngblood, Neal Sugarman and Dave Guy make those shining horns sing; and Bosco “Bass” Mann, bassist and bandleader, “tightens up” and brings it all together into soul-funk glory.

This act is helping people get down with their bad selves all over the world, and they have found an especially eager audience in France and England.  Sharon is pleased that their classic sound is reaching a younger audience: “we’ve got college students and hip hoppers feeling us and buying our albums.”  

Neal Sugarman, co-owner of the Daptone label, is pleased with how their appeal grew: “each time we have a show, more people come. That’s what supposed to happen, but sometimes it doesn’t so it really shows that people are reacting. The whole idea about doing these gigs is you play, someone tells their friends and more people come. It is really organic; with each record, people are drawn to the records. People are hearing about it from the radio or the newspaper, not TV, which is the way that the record industry tends to explode bands in a matter of weeks. The way it’s coming about for us is more underground.”

Their fame, growing from a word-of-mouth buzz, can be attributed to their commitment to a musical community and a spirit of collaboration. “We’re family,” Sharon claims, as she mentions other Daptone artists, “Lee Fields, Antibalas, The Mighty Imperialists, Sugarman 3—we all started together. They needed three background singers for Lee Fields, who was a top singer, so I went for it and now I’m here!”  Sharon reminisces about her past playing parties in bands with names like “Community Funk,” “Inner Spectrum,” and “Déja Vue”: “in Brooklyn, when were kids, we played in parks and at block parties.”

Sugarman explains that compilations illustrate collaborative efforts as well as help upstart bands gain recognition: “with remixes, and compilations, someone might be into another band and would learn about another band.” Compilations, he explains, also make it possible for people to hear music from the past: “they are a powerful thing now. No one could afford to find really rare funk records, so people are compiling a lot of funk stuff, and making it accessible to DJs.”

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are committed to keeping funk in our hips and soul in our hearts. It doesn’t occur to many that such a sound can still exist in the new millennia. When people heard her cover of Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” they thought that Jackson had actually covered a tune from the ’70s. Granted, listeners are easily tricked by the nature of the recordings, which are done on reel-to-reel tape—not digitally—and sometimes cut after only one take, making the hip-shaking funk feel like an undiscovered gem from the early ’70s." According to Sharon, when DJ Greyboy heard her first album, he asked if she had recorded it when she was in her ’20s. Sharon later went on to cut the single, “Got to Be My Love,” with him and her voice reached an even wider audience.

This band’s skilled throwback to the ’60s and ’70s is, according to Sharon, a product of Daptone Records’ commitment to classic soul: “we keep the funk music alive by using live instruments, and that’s important. You take that away, and everything will be stuck to electronic, where one guy pushes a button or plays every single instrument on a keyboard. You get rid of the musicians; you get rid of the real music. If we’re not doing it, we’ll no longer have this stuff. So you got to keep it going. I’m glad we’re a band that’s on a record label that wants to keep it going. If we stop doing this, they’re not going to have anything else but samples from old records, so we’ve got to keep it going.”  

This Daptone band is therefore at the head of a renaissance, where live instrumentation and a community spirit is making its way back into the heart of the r ’n’ b scene.  If Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings keep it this hot, we’ll soon be seeing people dancing “the Electric Boogaloo” everywhere.