“I’ve been telling people for years: I’m not retro. There are all these strange ideas about what this kind of music should be,” she says. “People are always talking about how soul music has to come from a dark place, a depressive place where the singer has lost something. And that just isn’t true. Soul music just has to come from the heart, and most of it is just good, you know? Shit,” she exclaims, with a little shout of laughter, “sometimes they even talk about how only black people can really do soul! I mean, you only have to look at what Hall & Oates were doing, and how they were getting people on their feet in late ’70s, to know that the only thing that matters is heart.”
The story of The Dap-Kings began in the mid ’90s, when Philip Lehman and Gabriel Roth met Jones while she was singing backing vocals for the legendary deep funk singer Lee Fields. Shortly after, Roth founded the vinyl-pressing and analog equipment-favouring Daptone Records with Sugarman 3 saxophonist Neal Sugarman, and took Jones and the newly-formed band to Spain. After a summer in residence at Barcelona club The Boite in 2001, the group released their debut LP, Dap Dippin’ With Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings. Despite having a limited initial run of a few hundred copies, it still managed to make an impact in Europe and America, and by the time they arrived back home Roth had a stack of requests from festival promoters and club owners all over the world. What had started out as a summer holiday quickly became a touring and recording monolith that was far greater than the sum of its players.
More than a decade later, the group have released four studio albums as well as last year’s collection of non-album tracks, Soul Time! They’ve also toured the globe, with their electric live show gaining particular notoriety at festivals; Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings will be returning to Australia at the end of this year, for a headline set at Peats Ridge Festival. “We love the festivals, every inch. We try to make it so that everyone can bring their kids along, and show them something new,” Jones says. “We bring the music they don’t hear that often – maybe some Motown, or a little Supremes for the afternoon – and we bring something entirely new and real. Just the other day we were at a bluegrass festival in Colorado, and people were having a great time dancing to our tunes. I mean here I am, a black woman performing at a hillbilly festival, and they loved every minute of it! That’s a powerful thing, because ultimately it’s about people just sharing a love of music. We’re lucky to be a part of that.”
Another luminary of the genre, Mr Charles Bradley – The Screaming Eagle Of Soul, and a champion of Victoria’s Golden Plains Festival – has been signed to Daptone Records since being discovered by Roth in 2001. At the time, he was performing club shows as a James Brown impersonator under the moniker Black Velvet. “Look at that beautiful man, living his dream,” Jones says, with obvious affection. “He was out there imitating James Brown, and then people gave him a chance to do his own thing.” Jones is proud of the important role she played in enabling Bradley to become more than just an impersonator. “I just sat him down one day and said, ‘You need to stop being James Brown – you just be Charles Bradley.’ And he grumbled a bit and asked me what I meant, so I told him, ‘You don’t need to do the splits like him, or do anything like him. You can take James Brown and you make him yours, because you’re too good not to stand on your own’.”
Jones is standing on her own when we speak, on the porch of a house she bought for her mother in rural South Carolina. The house represents a milestone for the woman, who was born just across the Savannah River in Augusta, Georgia. “One of my main goals in life was to get my mum out of the projects, so it meant a lot that I was able to buy this place for her just before she passed away in March. She only got to have a few months here, but I know she got some enjoyment out of it,” she says. Has Jones’ relocation from New York provided her with some enjoyment as well? “Shit yes! I’ve just come back from fishing out on the river, and I caught 28 fish! I even went out in the boat this time, when normally I stay on shore.
“But that’s what you gotta do: keep learning and pushing,” she explains. “I’m 56 and it seems to me that my life is just beginning. It feels like everything, all my dreams, are slowly coming true.”
BY BENJAMIN COOPER
