Here, she tells some very interesting stories of working with rock legend Lou Reed, and bringing her raw and shockingly authentic blend of funk and soul back into the mainstream. Plus, The Dap Kings own band leader and bass player, Bosco Mann speaks on recording, working with Amy Winehouse among others, and what’s going on in the world of Daptone Records.
So Sharon, what have you been up to lately?
Sharon Jones (SJ): I came off tour in January, and basically from January till now (July), we’ve been doing a weekend gig here, a festival there. But the Dap Kings have been on tour with Amy [Winehouse] and then they had the ESPN awards with her. They did it because I was supposed to have left on June the 14th, to go on tour with Lou Reed. But then Denzel [Washington] asked me to be in his upcoming movie The Great Debaters, where I play a soul singer. I’m also on the soundtrack. So I had to go back down and do the soundtrack for the movie. So I had to tell Lou at the last minute, three days before I was supposed to leave to go on tour that I couldn’t go on tour with him. Lou Reed was pissed! Then he [Lou] tried to get another girl to replace me, and Denzel wanted me to do more days. It was totally crazy! I was like, we’re not gonna be able to do Lou’s tour. One of his assistants was yelling at me over the phone, going "Lou is gonna hate you Sharon. We’re gonna pull your name and never, ever gonna use you again. Give us the word, and we’ll never ever use you again." So, we wrote letters to Lou, and he finally wrote a letter back saying he found someone and wished me the best. It was such a last minute thing, but they did find someone. Then I saw him Saturday at Prospect Park in Brooklyn and what happened was, they had a show and I already knew about it a couple of months ago, but they wouldn’t call my manager and let me know if I’m doing this thing with Lou, and they said I don’t think so. Lou’s manager waited till the last minute to call and let me know I was gonna be in it. They tried to keep me out of it, but the people at Prospect Park wanted me there, so the day before that Friday of the performance, they gave me all the songs and I had to go on stage and sing everything at the last minute. So, then I saw Lou on stage when we were all practicing for the show, and I said "Lou," then I ran across the stage to him. He saw me and he turned and started walking away. So I went, "Lou, it’s me, Sharon!" He went, "I know." So I grabbed him like this (she gives me a bear hug) and I went, "Lou, come give me a hug. Give me a hug now!" Then he put his arm around me and I said, "Lou, don’t do that to me. I am so sorry. He said, "Did you finish the movie?" I said, "Yes, the movie is done. That was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make." He said, "Yeah, we did get someone else but it wasn’t the same as having you and Antony." I didn’t know Antony wasn’t going to be there. I just found out yesterday about that.
Who? Antony from Antony and the Johnsons?
Yeah, and Antony wasn’t there, so neither one of us was there when he did the show. But still, I’m just sitting in the background singing. When I got off stage after that show, he came up, kissed, and hugged me. Ben E. King was there, an old guy named Norman Tate. I never heard of him. I think he did some stuff in the 60s, and you had Lou Reed and a bunch of other people up there who I didn’t know, which I should know probably. So Lou did one song and then he read something.
So what was this show for?
It was something in Prospect Park for Doc Pomus. Every song performed was by him.
What did Lou Reed perform?
I forgot. Something about young something. I forgot the name of it. Some rock song. You know Lou, yyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww (she’s making guitar noises with her mouth). He was cool and the main thing is that I got that who thing over with. Now, I’m not going to apologize to him anymore because it’s done. I had to do the right thing because it was last minute notice and that was bad, so I understand. I think that issue is now resolved. I put my little kneepad on and now, no more kneepads.
Well, it’s cool that you ended things with Lou on a good note.
I had to because we did it to him and it wasn’t like I did it on purpose. It was a movie deal, so he understood.
I read that you are from Augusta, Georgia and moved to Brooklyn when you were young. Did that have an effect on the musical direction you wanted to go in?
I was born in 1959 and I moved there in 1961. I was three years old when I came to New York. Every summer, up until I became a teenager, my mother would let us go back and forth to the south and I stayed with my grandmother. We would go down and see James Brown. My brother Henry used to imitate James Brown, and I would imitate him too, so people thought we were twins. I was a little tomboy so I was always trying to do whatever the guys were doing. But I think the biggest influence on me was when I started getting older and my older sister used to sing and we used to back her up. She used to sing like Mary Wells and The Supremes and all them. When I got older, Aretha [Franklin] inspired me. Her voice was just phenomenal and then when she did that gospel album, Amazing Grace, that got me more into her and singing. I would say Aretha influenced me as far as female singing but every song I heard between Motown and Stax, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, even The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, all of those, I used to love all that stuff.
How did you end up hooking up with Daptone records and the Dap Kings?
Gabriel Roth (recording engineer) and Bosco Mann (bass) were looking for three singers to back up Lee Fields. At the time, Lee Fields was like the James Brown of the label, when it was called Desco, and they were The Soul Providers. So they needed three girls and I was like, "Hey, one of my ex’s used to play the horn when he was in a band doing soul and Fela [Kuti] stuff, so I was like, "why use three girls when I can do all three part harmony?" and Gabe was shocked. So that day, I went in to do the background for Lee Fields and then he had this track and asked me to sing something to that song, and the next thing I knew I was in London and I’m in Big Daddy magazine being called "The Queen of funk," and opening for Maceo Parker, maybe like two years later.
Who gave you the title of "Queen of funk?"
Big Daddy magazine did. They put it up on a billboard. They labeled me that, and when I saw it, I was like, who’s the queen of funk? When I got to France, they were calling me the queen of soul and I was like, how dare you put that up! That’s Aretha’s title. Please don’t ever print that. I was like, queen of funk? You sure I can carry that title? Alright, I got it. Now, that’s my title.
Are you a fan of anybody's music right now?
I can’t name them all, but I’ve heard some like Jill Scott, Alicia Keyes, I think she can hold her own. A couple of other ones like India Aire and Beyonce. Beyonce, she got her own thing going on. She’s more or less selling her look, she’s going around doing her thing, and that’s what they talk about her. She’s got her own thing going on. I ain’t mad at her for that. There’s probably some more male and female singers I’m not naming but there’s quite a few that are really singing out there right now.
You remind me a lot of James Brown when you’re moving around on stage. Do you incorporate any moves live as que’s to the band like he used to do?
No. I don’t have time to think about that and I guess I try not to do that because I’d be doing my shows too much like him. I think Binky [Griptite, guitar and MC] does that and Lee Fields does that too and sometimes the band watches me and might like the way I do something or I might say "break it down." I think it depends on the song and if I have too. Sometimes I know what the drummer is gonna play so I might dance to it. I try not to know that I might be doing something from someone. I just like it to be a spur of the moment thing. I might be on the stage and get a James Brown attack. Since James died last year, I really want to do, "This is a man’s world." I want to sing the whole song from the top.
Well, my next question was about the Lou Reed tour prior to this recent one. But we don’t have to go into that though.
No, well, the Lou Reed tour in June, that one was cancelled, but the one that I did here at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn for four days and then did a recording of it, and then we went to Australia this past January, that tour was great. When my manager first approached me about working with Lou Reed, I was like wow, Lou Reed. I didn’t know Lou Reed’s music though. All I knew of him was "Walk on the Wild Side." You know, doo do doo do doo do do doo. But when I heard his album Berlin, the lyrics to that album, it was so dark. The album didn’t sell that well in the 70s but now, it’s doing well. The album is doing better in the last couple of years than it did in 73 when it came out.
But everything does. All the great albums are always better 35 years later.
Yeah, and I enjoyed touring with him. We were in New York in Brooklyn and someone there was trying to get him to let me sing adlib in one of the songs. So Lou and Antony [of Antony and the Johnsons] let me sing something and Lou said, "you really sound great. You really got a great voice." I was like "thank you, thank you." So I’m thinking, I’ll do a little adlib in this song, but Lou said he didn’t want me to adlib in that particular song because I stepped over his solo when he was playing. Then that night, Lou got on the stage and was doing another song, and then he goes, "take it Sharon!" I wasn’t expecting that, so I started adlibbing. I didn’t know what to say, so I was just repeating what Lou was saying. Then after that, he didn’t give me nothing else to do. So, we get to Australia and Lou goes for an interview, and every time the guy would mention my name he’d say, "So Lou, how does it feel having the wonderful, the magnificent Sharon Jones behind you?" Lou said to me, "all I could do was look at him shocked." So, Lou said, "Come here," and he gave me two verses to his song "Sweet Jane." This song is his baby. So he said that he was going to take the first verse and that I’ll take the last two verses. So we practiced it and Lou wanted me to sing it exactly like him. I was thinking that if he wants me to sing it exactly like him, then I don’t really want to do it. So I tried to sing it my way, and Lou was like, "Hold up everyone. You know what Sharon, I’ve been singing this song for the last 35 years or so. You know, I’m not saying that I’m not singing this song right, but I want to hear this song sung the way I wrote it to be heard. Sing the song the way you feel." So I said okay. That night, when the band began to play "Sweet Jane," I started running around the stage like I was Tina Turner. The crowd was sitting down and then everybody got up and flew to the front of the stage, people were screaming. Lou stood there at the end of the night on the mic and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Sharon Jones. She took me to the mountaintop." So that’s my Lou Reed story. He was really happy for me (doing the film with Denzel) and hurting him was never my intention, so I’m glad everything is settled because I would really love to go on tour with him and do some more stuff. It was fun. I told him being on stage with Lou Reed is like being on stage with James Brown. I told him that, so why would I disrespect him like that?
You have a new album coming out on October 2nd called 100 Days, 100 Nights. What can we expect?
The new album 100 Days, 100 Nights is more about different guys in the band writing stuff. It’s not just Bosco and Gabe this time. They wrote the first two albums. I think this is more like a late 60s sound we have here. Most of the songs, we try to keep a certain pattern. We have so much material, that I don’t think we’ll have to wait another two years before putting out another album. I’m doing a little gospel on this album, the last song "Answer Me." It’s a gospel song that came out in the 80s. That’s a cover from Dorothy Norwood.
Hey Bosco, what is the process like putting a Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings album together?
Bosco Mann (BM): It’s amazing. It’s live. It’s soulful. It’s what we do. Some of the music is completely arranged ahead of time, tried and tested on the stage. Other times, someone just has an idea and the band completely crafts the arrangement in the studio. However we do it, it’s always about letting Sharon sing and letting the band play. Not getting in the way. Just keeping it natural and sincere. For a band that lives and breathes Soul Music, it’s just another day at work.
The Dap Kings sound more like original soul/funk from the 60s than a throwback to it. How do you all manage to capture that authentic sound?
BM: We don’t have a retro approach. We are not referencing old music. We don’t fetish-ize vintage equipment or afro-wigs or bell-bottoms. Our music sounds authentic because it is authentic. It¹s real people making real music. From the depths of our souls. From our heart of hearts. When it’s real, you don’t have to worry about any of that "retro revival genre" kind of shit. The music is exactly what it sounds like.
How was working with Amy Winehouse?
BM: Great. Contrary to popular belief, she’s a very sober level-headed girl. She writes good songs and was easy to work with. She’s talented. A great singer. Very mellow, easy sessions.
Were you surprised with the success that the album Back to Black has received in Europe and the States? Is it a trip having a chart-topping hit as Rehab?
BM: I’d be able to tell you what a chart-topping hit feels like when we have our own.
Has it affected the label and who you work with now?
BM: Not really, our daily routine has pretty much stayed true to its original course.
A lot has been going on in Bushwick studios. Mark Ronson worked closely with you at Daptone Studios recording his new album "Versions" as well as other re-mix projects including Lilly Allen's hit single "Smile." How has it been working on those projects?
BM: Those projects are easy, an afternoon here and there. Mark’s great and easy to work with and I’m glad he digs our sound. We’ve also got tons of stuff of our own cooking right now. We have a Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens record that is as deep as it is wide. A Menahan Street Band record that will open up your consciousness like a father’s day gift, toss the wrapping aside, and wear you like a new tie while it walks into the cosmos for a stoned soul picnic. We have an A cappella Gospel record from Como Mississippi that will look you squarely in the eyes and make you feel like a human again. And speaking of Jesus Christ, have you heard the new Budos album? We’ve got Charles Bradley, Binky Griptite, Lee Fields, the Sugarman 3, Bob & Gene... We’ve got hit records in here we don’t even remember making!
What makes a Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings live show so special?
SJ: I think that when we come on that stage, our intention is to have a good time. When I get on that stage, I’m giving you 150 percent. Not 100 percent. I always feel that when I go out there, this could be my last time. I’m 51 years old, so you never know with your health, you never know. So I just look forward to it. You know how groups come and groups go, so each time I go out there, I’m gonna give you a good show because I want you to go back and tell someone, "Man, I don’t know if she can do any better!" So when we come on stage we really want to make people happy. That’s our job.
BM: It’s the most dynamic, raw, and exciting show on the circuit today. The energy that emanates from Sharon is unreal. When she unleashes herself, the band feeds off of it, the audience feeds off of it. Then she feeds off the audience and the whole thing gets hotter and hotter until it’s a stomping, screaming, sweating orgy of a happening, dig? If you ain’t seen it, I can’t really explain it to you other than to say it’s good for you and good to you. |