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Biography
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were a funk/soul band, founded in Brooklyn, NY, USA (1996). They were signed to Daptone Records, where the Dap-Kings are the house band. They are widely thought to be spearheads of a revivalist movement that aims to capture the essence of funk/soul music as it was at its height in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. Part of the way this is achieved is to shun modern digital recording methods in favour of using traditional analogue recording equipment. The type of instruments used by the band may also be considered limited to those that would have been available up until the mid seventies.
Sharon Jones (May 4, 1956 – November 18, 2016), was born Sheron Lafaye Jones, in Augusta, Georgia, Her mother moved to Brooklyn, soon thereafter, however Jones was sent down south for a few months every year to stay with her family. As a child, she and her brothers would imitate the songs and dances of James Brown, who shared their home-town. Like many rhythm and blues entertainers, she began performing in church at a very young age. As a teenager in the early nineteen seventies, she began singing outside of the church in talent shows and with local funk groups. Later she would make her living with a combination of sporadic session work as a mostly anonymous voice on various dance records (sometimes credited as Lafaye Jones), singing with wedding bands, and a handful of day jobs which included stints as both a prison guard at New York’s notorious Riker’s Island, and an armored car guard for Wells Fargo Bank. In 1996 she was called in to sing back-up at a Desco Records studio session for 70’s soul legend Lee Fields.
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