Show #195: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

October 7th, 2009

(Photo by StoneyJr.)

I don’t know squat about Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings but here are the notes that came with the recording I’m featuring this week:

“With a retro sound that goes beyond just an homage to the past, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are bringing classic soul and funk to another generation of listeners. In the late ’90s, Sharon Jones quickly earned the title “Queen of Funk” for her work at Desco Records. When Desco, an independent label specializing in traditional funk and soul pressed exclusively to wax, closed its doors because of financial issues, Jones and Desco co-owner Bosco Mann put together a new group. In 2001, the new group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, released their debut CD Dap Dippin’ with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings to pick-up where Desco left off.

Over the next three years, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings would tour extensively and built a reputation as the unrivaled frontrunners of old-school Soul and Funk music. In 2006, the band returned to the studio. The resulting 100 Days, 100 Nights features more extensive songwriting and arranging contributions for a deeper, more soulful return to traditional R&B roots. Blender wrote: “The band replicates the surface effect of Otis Redding ballads, New Orleans jams and Motown pop-soul down to the last tambourine rattle.”

Both Jones and her Dap-Kings have also been busy with other projects in the last few years. Jones is featured on Rufus Wainwright and They Might Be Giants most recent recordings. The Dap-Kings recorded half of the music on Amy Winehouse’s album Back to Black including the hit single “Rehab.” Spin wrote ‘Her crack band of Dap-Kings have enlivened everyone from Kanye to Amy Winehouse, but their most natural habitat is in Jones’ Aretha-like tales of sex, independence, and the good Lord himself.’”

So get ready for some classic-sounding R&B/soul.

This week’s show is from 5 July 2009 at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, OR. It’s a nice sounding FM recording, although not perfect. Any help with the setlist would be welcomed.

Set List

Instrumental
?
I’m Not Gonna Cry
Got To Be the Way It Is
?
Tell Me
Without a Heart
I Wonder Who’s Lovin’ You
One More Chance
Be Easy
Loving You
?
100 Days, 100 Nights

Download show

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

YouTube has footage from this very performance. Here’s the closer, “100 Days, 100 Nights”.

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3. Show #26: Blind Boys of Alabama
4. Show #182: Remembering Koko Taylor
5. Show #5: For Pam