Sharon Jones emerged from the Brooklyn bar scene a few years ago as a charming exponent of retro-soul with a slight tinge of Afro-beat flavor thanks to her horn-heavy band, The Dap Kings. With I Learned the Hard Way, the nine-piece group’s fourth outing, the formula is showing signs of fatigue.
Most of Hard Way comes across as little more than mimicry of ’60s/early ’70s-era Stax/Volt soul, right down to a that-man-don’t-treat-me-right spoken intro to “Window Shopping.” True, the disc features enthusiastic playing, period-faithful arrangements, troubled-woman lyrics and Jones’ robust, if rather generic, vocals — but the material does little to distinguish itself, from song to song, or in comparison to its stylistic forbear.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2010.