Born: 4 May 1956, United States
Died: 18 November 2016
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
“It seems unthinkable that the world might never have known her incredible talent.” That’s how one article eulogized Sharon Jones, lead singer of the Dap-Kings. Although she recognized her talent and passion from a young age, the industry didn’t agree. “Too dark skinned, too short, too fat, and then once you get past 25, you’re too old,” she commented in 2008. “They were looking for a look, but I knew that God gave me a gift and I said ‘one day people will accept me for my voice, not my look.’”
She continued to sing in church, in wedding bands, and in small studio session gigs, and even as a corrections officer at the infamous Rikers Island Prison, singing Whitney Houston songs to calm inmates. Finally, when she was 40, producers who knew her for her back-up work tapped her for a newly formed label, and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings was born.
“There’s no mistaking the authenticity of Jones’ convictions in her delivery, nor her star power and truly magnetic stage presence. With her fringe dress furiously swinging, hair whipping, sweat dripping from her face, watching Sharon Jones live on stage is to witness a singer completely possessed by the moment and transmitting every ounce of her energy to the audience,” raved the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Caz Tran.
The group toured regularly and produced several popular albums—Dap Dippin’ with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (2002), Naturally (2005), 100 Days, 100 Nights (2007), and Learned The Hard Way (2010). In the midst of preparations for the release of their fifth album, Give The People What They Want (2014), Jones was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. “Towards the ending of my cancer [treatment] we recorded that video, ‘Stranger to My Happiness.’ Doing that, the next four days, I was bed ridden because it drew all my energy,” she said. “It was so hard, that was my first time really getting back out and I was worried about the makeup and then I didn’t have any eyelashes and I was just so weak. I would just stand there and sing and when they said ‘cut’ every 15-20 minute break in between I had to sit down and wrap up in this towel. That eight hours was fun, but I was in bed behind it for a couple of days.”
Fortunately, Jones’s cancer went into remission, leaving her with a new perspective.
“When I was sick, the first thought [was] not knowing that I was going to be alive another year. And then once you see that you’re gonna live then, now ‘well, I gonna get my energy back,’” she said. “And the only way I could get that back was just doing it! You can’t get energy laying in the bed. You can get up and walk on a treadmill, but to me, getting back out there, getting back into the music, getting back on TV, getting back on stage was my therapy… Getting back on the road, as fast as I did, was because of the fact that I knew my fans was there for me. And I just had to get back out. [As] long as I was laying home, I was unhappy.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to last. Jones told her story in a documentary, Miss Sharon Jones! and revealed at a screening in 2015 that the cancer had returned. She passed the following year, at only 60 years old, but the legacy of her music lives on. Bandleader Gabe Roth, who was also the producer who had brought Jones into the spotlight, said in 2020,
She wasn’t just a great singer, but an unbelievable performer… She was really like a superhero. Her live show, how she was on stage, her energy, and soulfulness, and the way she connected with the audience, I don’t think there’ll ever be another like her.
Everything came out of that, all the success the band had, and all the success Daptone Records had. My ability to make money as a producer and a songwriter and everything else, it all came out of her sweating on stage. That’s one of the most important things, as far as my responsibility to try to not let that be forgotten, to let her stay in the mind of everybody long after I’m gone.
It’s important to keep her music fresh in everybody’s ears not just because she deserves it, but because I think people deserve it. They deserve to hear her voice.