Sharon Jones is so powerfully womanly that she can honestly make white men turn into little babies.
Sharon Jones is so powerfully womanly that she can honestly make white men turn into little babies. ‘Emasculation’ isn’t really even a strong enough term for what this ex-prison warden songstress can do to fully-grown men; at her shows, she usually at some stage invites a cocky-looking dude up on to the stage and sings him a song about getting down and then dances around him, forcing his, um, ‘ego’ to pretty much recede entirely. He’s usually thrilled once he’s off the stage, but she sure does make him feel like the whitest boy alive. She’s fierce, and her music is fiercer – and she shows no intention of ever stopping.
“I wanted to be a performer like everyone else, you know with all the television awards and stuff like that,” explains the 54-year old Jones, the lead singer of the incredible Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings, a legendary band that formed when she was ‘discovered’ at the very late age of 40, despite a life of wanting to break into the industry. “But I had a gift, and that gift [was] my voice and I knew that would be the one way people would accept me,” she adds.
Coming to music so late, Jones has had a life of different and strange jobs, including, famously, working at a jail. “Well I did many things,” she laughs, thinking back to the times where she was struggling for recognition. “Like being in little bands and working different jobs; like working on a truck, and working in an office sorting paperwork – but I always continued to sing like in a choir with the church.”
After years of myriad professions, Jones was introduced to Lee Fields when she sang backup in a session with Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann, as he’s known in the Dap Kings) and Philip Lehman. When they heard her, they knew they’d found something.
And the music they started to make was really something to make you get down to, get up for and get into.
Despite similarities, this is no Amy Winehouse or Cee-Lo Green soul revival: Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings make real soul music – it’s kosher, even if there are white guys in the band. It’s not soul music-slash-anything; it’s not soul music updated for the modern world, and it’s not soul music with any kind of twist: it’s straight up soul music and it doesn’t need any excuses.
With her fourth album I Learned The Hard Way out this year and her forthcoming Australian tour for Meredith, Jones laughs when I ask her about the rest of the festival lineup or even what she listens to these days. “I listen to stuff and listen to the radio and when I’m driving or something like that, but sometimes the stuff you listen to all just sounds the same,” she says. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask about what’s going on in the music scene at the moment,” she laughs.
It’s not that making soul music is so anachronistic that she doesn’t care about music – it’s more that she doesn’t need to listen to contemporary music to be inspired. She’s got James Brown for that.
“When you’re on the road and traveling, you’re not really thinking about other people’s music, you’re more thinking about you and keeping yourself together for your gigs. Maybe when I get home and have some down time, I’ll listen to other people’s music,” Jones laughs, but in terms of buying and listening to music, apparently purse strings are also a factor. “It’s no joke, you know,” she sighs. “At my age and when you’re touring and with an independent label (so you’re not making heaps of money) you have to watch how you spend so you still have money for when you stop touring, or you come home.
And as for the ‘soul revival’ going on now with the likes of Ms Winehouse, Mayer Hawthorne, Janelle Monae and the rest, Jones is fairly purist. “They’ve got their own thing going on,” she figures. “They call it ‘soul’ but it’s just pop to me – they’ve got live instruments so it’s cool they put a bit of effort into it and they call it soul, and I’m glad that they’re doing it… as long as they keep putting in instruments like guitar, bass, drums, synthesizers and all those gadgets…”
More important for Jones is just really keeping the soul dream alive. “I really don’t think about what anyone else is doing with their music, as long as they’re keeping the soul music going,” she says firmly. “[A lot of awards] don’t have a category for soul: they have a category for r’n’b but they don’t have one for soul. They think that soul is just from the ‘60s, no one’s doing soul anymore and what I’m doing is retro, but there isn’t anything retro about me and they just have to accept the fact that I’m doing soul music out here now: there’s no retro.”
Why change something that’s working fine? Why fix it if it ain’t broke? Jones believes that her music is working and has absolutely no near plans for ‘re-inventing’ herself in any way at all. “I’m trying to keep it like [it is] for as long as I can,” she says happily. “I see why some bands and groups break up, because they cheat each other out because you can’t outdo yourself. Just be yourself; people keep coming to see you and why do they just keep messing it up, you know?”
There’s so much love in The Dap Kings that you’d never really expect that kind of thing to happen. There’s love and, well, sex – Jones makes the kind of soul music that is a little bit too sexy for the average Joe to handle. She sings about sex like she owns it and you should learn from her, but sexiness is not a huge priority for her, she admits. “You’re looking into someone’s life,” she says. “I try not to offend anyone and try to watch what I’m saying, because it makes sense when I’m singing it, because I try to sing to my liking and if I don’t like it or can’t deal with it then I won’t sing it,” she says strongly.
Will she ever stop? The way Jones speaks about music is with such passion and confidence that I wonder whether there is any part in her at all that might thinking about retiring or settling down from the hectic touring and writing life of a musician. “No,” she asserts strongly. “Some of these guys are getting families and babies or something so they might think about doing something like that, but not me. You know, I’m just trying to get out there and do as much as I can.”
And hell, why not? She deserves it by now. She may have learned the hard way, but she’s surely enjoying having learned what she needs now.
SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS play The Palace on Tuesday December 7 (sold out) and they’ve just added a new show on Wednesday December 8 – tickets from Polyester City and Fitzroy, oztix.com.au and 1300 762 545. They also play the sold out MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL from December 10-12, alongside Dirty Three, The Fall, Neil Finn, Little Red, Reverend Horton Heat and heaps of other awesome bands. The new SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS album I Learned The Hard Way is out now through Shock.
