Sharon Jones delivers the funk, but unlike FedEx, she hasn't done it overnight. It took decades for the 52-year-old singer to be recognized as a cult R&B icon. Jones put in time as a prison guard on Riker's Island and rode shotgun for Wells Fargo before becoming a full-time soul diva.
Born in Augusta, Ga., Jones and her family moved to Brooklyn soon after she was born. The singer kept her Southern roots intact through yearly visits back to her hometown until she was well into her teens. Jones says she was in the right place at the right time but had the wrong look. "They had their little club," Jones says of '70s managers, promoters and record executives who passed her over. "They told me I didn't have the look. They told me I was too dark-skinned, too short (4-feet-11), too fat; and once I got past 25, they told me I was too old, so this is what I've been dealing with coming up."
But Jones had the voice and the desire. She spent 17 years with a Brooklyn-based wedding band, covering Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson with the same raw energy and intensity she now brings to shows with her band the Dap Kings.
Jones started to put the cover-band grind in the rear-view in 1996; that's when her sax-playing boyfriend recommended her as a backup vocalist for soul singer Lee Fields on the respected indie funk label Desco. Her brassy delivery and down-home soul style broke her out of the ensemble cast of the Desco Soul Revue, enabling her to go solo, backed by the label's house band, the Soul Providers. She developed a cult following overseas as a result of singles cut with the Providers, bolstered by a U.K. tour in '99. The Providers became the Dap Kings in '01, and a summer-long gig in Barcelona that year solidified Jones' status as an R&B goddess overseas.
Amy Winehouse was impressed with Jones and company after hearing 2002's Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings and '05's Naturally. Winehouse producer Mark Ronson hired the Dap Kings as the British chanteuse's recording and touring band for Back in Black; they were also featured in the "Rehab" video. Jones wasn't invited.
Reached by phone aboard ship for Jam Cruise 6, where she's appearing with bands like Grace Potter and The Nocturnals and Yonder Mountain String Band, Jones says she's not bitter about being left out of the Winehouse project. "I wanted to do it," she admits. "I was like, 'Hmm, you sure you don't want me? Oh, all right," she whines cattily, then laughs. "I didn't understand, but yeah, it was a good thing."
The Dap Kings play a major part in providing the grit and authenticity to Jones' retro-soul. They don't sound that far removed from the Stax house bands that backed Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett decades ago. Most of the eight members are still young. "When I first met them, my drummer Homer ["Funkyfoot" Steinweiss] was 16 years old," Jones says. "And they were still learning the rhythm, learning to get the beats down."
They've got it down now. But the ensemble hasn't just carbon-copied the glory days of the '60s and '70s. Earlier versions of the Dap Kings featured a distinct African tinge. Three original members went on to form the Brooklyn-based Afrobeat band Antibalas. In some of Jones' early singles, that style — with its lilting guitar lines over a loping funk groove — is clearly evident. The lead track to 2005's estimable Naturally, "How Do I Let a Good Man Down?", bears the unmistakable imprint of Afrobeat, right down to the ragged, Fela-esque horns. Slight traces of that vibe remain in Jones' work today: intricate, guitar lines curlicue around the fat bass vamps.
But when Jones steps to the mic, there's no doubt who's in charge. "I ain't nobody's fool," she proclaims on "Nobody's Baby," from last year's 100 Days, 100 Nights, gruntin' and groanin' like a cross between Aretha Franklin and Jean Knight.
Jones has forged a strong reputation as a vibrant, spontaneous live performer. "Last night, I got up on stage, and I had to call these little dancers up, and they was break dancin' and was dancin' so good I was looking at them, and I had forgot the lyrics to the song," she says, laughing. "That's one good thing about being live. You can act up, cut songs down and then you go back into it and just let the people see that you just messed up and you're having fun."
Despite her growing international rep, the singer still revisits some of those old cover gigs, the ones that sustained her financially and somehow managed to keep the dream alive. "I was playing with the wedding band up until about three years ago," Jones says, adding that she and the Dap Kings "just got too busy. But every once in awhile we do a [wedding] gig here and there, a little surprise." And, like a lot of soul singers, she's still rooted in church: "Believe it or not, I still go on Sundays when I'm there, pop my head in, say hey, sing a song or play the organ."
Lately, Jones has been expanding her outreach ever further. She appears with Denzel Washington in The Great Debaters and is featured on the soundtrack as a '30s-era blues singer; she also just finished a world tour opening for Lou Reed. Ultimately, Jones' desired legacy is a modest one. "I'd just like to be remembered as someone who's put out some good music," the singer says, "that people loved my voice, and they loved the sound that I had."
This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2008.