>> New York’s Sharon Jones and her Dap-Kings
are keeping it real funky

by SCOTT C

About a month ago, someone came into the record store where I work looking for what they called “the original version of Janet Jackson’s ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’.” They were of course referring to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ smoking cover of the same song. The track is so raw and unbelievably funky that most people assume Janet took from them. The 45-year-old New York-based, Augusta, Georgia-born funk/soul sensation has been singing all her life, and has recently been tearing up stages and dance floors with her more than capable band of 20-something Dap-Kings backing her up. Having just released her first full-length solo LP Dap Dippin’ on Gabe Roth’s Daptone Records, the new Queen of Funk is just getting started. The Mirror spoke to her over the phone from her home in Queens, NY.

Mirror: You told me yesterday that you were going fishing. Did you catch any fish or what?
Sharon Jones: Actually they weren’t biting too well, ’cause I went freshwater. Caught a couple bigmouth bass and a couple catfish and stuff like that.

M: Are you one of those people they call an “angler”?
SJ: I love it. Yeah, that’s how I relax. That’s how I take my mind off of everything. I just go there with music and nature and just relax. You’d be amazed.

M: I know you live in New York so where the hell do you go fishing?
SJ: Well, I’m in Queens, but I drive all the way to Jersey for like two hours just to go fishing. I was up at 4:30 this morning and left at 5:30 with my brother-in-law. He’s an older guy, but he likes to go fishing too.

M: How often do you do that?
SJ: Well, when I’m not singing-’cause now I don’t work a nine-to-five anymore, I’m singing for a living and have been for four or five years-I’ll go twice a week if I can swing it. Sometimes, if I’m really busy out of town, I don’t get to go at all. Like last summer, I think I only got a chance to get out there maybe three times. I’ve already been out at least six times this summer.

M: It must feel good to be able to quit your nine-to-five and make a living as a funk and soul singer in the year 2002.
SJ: We’re really just getting started. This is only the beginning, to be truthful to you. Not only do I sing with the Dap-Kings, I sing with a wedding band that I’ve been with for 17 years, as well as a couple other gigs. I also work with the church in the choir and with the kids, y’know. I do a lot of studio work on and off and right now I’m doing some club gospel with this guy Dewey.

M: Wow. You’re an all-around working voice.
SJ: Yes I am. Gospel is my thing at church. I don’t do this “new gospel,” y’ know, all this contemporary stuff that sounds like current R&B. I think some of the new stuff is a little out of hand. You’re listening to it, and you can’t tell if it’s gospel or the new pop/R&B track. You’re in places and people are dancing and carrying on, and I’m like, “This is a gospel song?”

M: When I go to New York and listen to all the gospel on Sunday morning radio, I lose my mind! I think it’s great, but I know what you mean.
SJ: You know Kirk Franklin? Man, he’ll be up there with the choir, and all the sudden it’s like “Breakdown-give the drummer some!” (laughs) What kind of message is that?

Groove is in the art

M: Have you started touring with the Dap-Kings yet?
SJ: Well, last year we were in Barcelona for a month. Then we went to Ireland, Scotland and London. This will be our first time in Montreal. From there we’re off to Maine, Vermont, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee, but it’ll be fun. I love it.

M: You mean you like being on the road?
SJ: Yes! I really just started doing the whole on the road thing. The Dap-Kings used to be called the Soul Providers, and we did a little travelling but not much. It’s really just picked up in the last two years.

M: I’ve read great reviews of your live shows over in Europe and the U.K., and it sounds like you have quite the following of fans and admirers all across Europe. Is it surprising to tear the house down in front of what seems to be such a young audience?
SJ: I’m always surprised, especially when I’m over in Europe and London. People over there appreciate this music soooo much. In America, if you ain’t doing hip hop, your waist isn’t 24 inches and you don’t have abs, forget it. Y’know what I mean?

M: Yep.
SJ: If you’re not doing what everybody else is doing and you don’t happen to have that look, you can simply forget about it. I think more Americans need to take notice of funk music. More labels should support it and try to put more out. You’ve got all this nu-funk, neo-soul… it’s real, deep down, original funk. It’s all about the groove. That’s what people don’t understand, it’s a groove, and not everyone can groove like that.

M: That’s for damn sure!
SJ: Not everybody can find that place (starts mimicking a rhythm guitar lick) and keep it there.

M: My editor wanted to know if you were retro.
SJ: (laughs)

M: I was like “NO AL! This is dirt. This is as raw as it gets.” You guys are definitely in the pocket, it’s done properly and it feels right.
SJ: We try. (laughs)

M: Your music is far from a watered down throwback to days gone by. It is days gone by to the T. I’m looking forward to seeing you play the room at Sala Rossa here in Montreal. I’m sure the night will be magically transformed once you hit the stage.
SJ: We play up in this club in Brooklyn called Frank’s sometimes, and this place is soo small, I’m tellin’ you. It’s so comfortable though. It’s a place with all of the pictures of people that have been through there, all the articles in the papers from the last 30 years all up on the walls. I love places like that. That’s where you reach people who will stick with your sound.

Nasty boy

M: So I know you like to indulge in the finer things, like fishing, but are you living the high life? Are you living the life of a funk/soul sensation?
SJ: I love what I do. I am not living the high life at all, but I’m comfortable. There’s nothing like it. You just have to do it and do it until you can’t, or until you have to find another way to provide or something. But I have to do this right now.

M: Tell me about how you hooked up with Gabe Roth.
SJ: I got started with Gabe through an ex-fiancé of mine who used to play saxophone with them. They were looking for some backup singers to sing behind Lee Fields, and I was like, why use three singers when I can sing all of these parts? So I went in to do that, and they got me to do this song called “Switchblade.” Then we did a track called “Landlord,” and I made up a song on the spot called “Damn It’s Hot”-those were the first things with the Soul Providers. That was five years ago.

M: So he’s largely responsible for the blazin‘ production on the LP?
SJ: He amazes me. He wrote those songs. I didn’t write anything on the album. I look at him and I think, what is going on in this guy’s head? Are you a reincarnated black man inside of there? You’re a 20-something white guy and you come out with this funk! He wrote everything! Everything except “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” but until he arranged it and handed me the lyric sheet, I had no idea what Janet Jackson had been saying all those years. :

With DJ Kobal and Troubleman at La Sala Rossa on Tuesday, Aug. 20,9pm, $10