Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
NewMusicforOldFolks says …
So, filling out the artist's info for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings I came to the "If you like this, look into" line and I stopped to think. "Who on my list do they sound like, even a little?" There were a couple artists I could have stretched to fit in there, but the fact is, this is a throwback group doing music from another era. And it sounds fresh and unique. The newest album, Give The People What They Want, was delayed by a cancer diagnosis for Jones, but she's back belting out late ’60s-style soul with the tightest backing band around. The Dap-Kings even released a Christmas album in 2015. Who does that anymore? UPDATE: After a return of cancer, Sharon Jones passed away in November of 2016.
Artist's Info
Website: sharonjonesandthedapkings.com
Record company: Daptone
See also: Soul Providers
Genre: Soul, R&B, Funk
Bio (From AllMusic.com)
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. (more)
Spotify sampler
Recordings
Most Recent
GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT (2014): Give The People What They Want is certainly an appropriate title for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings' upcoming release. After more than a decade of nearly constant touring, recording, and as one of the most formidable and consequential live acts performing today, they know what their audience wants from them. They know, because its what they want, too. This, shall we say, je ne sais quoi - that makes everyone from Prince to Beck to John Legend to Michael Bublé to countless fans return again and again to the Dap sound - is found both on stage and in the recording booth. After two years of touring behind 2010's lauded I Learned The Hard Way, the band reconvened in Bushwick's Daptone House of Soul Studios and Daptone West in Riverside, CA to begin work on their fifth album. The 10 tracks they've delivered are what you've come to expect, even need, from the 11-piece band: the classic songwriting of "We Get Along," the impressive energy of "Retreat," and, solidified in "Stranger To My Happiness;" that kind of studio expertise that defines the band and their sound. It's those sharp, danceable funk grooves that stick to your bones; the fervent, impassioned singing that goes straight to your heart; and those sweet soul hooks that stay in your head for days on end. Give the people what they want, indeed.
OTHERS
Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (2002)
Naturally (2005)
100 Days, 100 Nights (2007)
I Learned the Hard Way (2010)
