The film’s bald, beautiful hero in action.
Few singers had the ability to deliver a song with as much authentic power and soul as Sharon Jones, the charismatic frontwoman of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.
Sadly, Jones died Nov. 18, at age 60, after a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, which she had battled since 2013.
There’s ample proof of the singer’s remarkable talent and resilience in Miss Sharon Jones!, one of 2016’s most exciting films. I caught it when Jones was still alive during its abbreviated run at Sundance in August. Now you can rent it on Amazon — and I hope it makes it back into theaters, even though it will be a different experience, knowing how her story ends.
An in-your-face look at her fight with cancer, throughout this intimate portrait, Jones is completely upfront about what she had to overcome. In some ways, her cancer diagnosis was really just another challenge. Her life was always about believing in herself — and in the music — despite what the outside world was telling her.
“They said I was too fat, too black, too short and too old,” says Jones, echoing the words of a record label executive.
The former Rikers Island corrections officer was born into a poor family in Augusta, Georgia (James Brown’s hometown); the family moved to Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, when Jones was young. She didn’t release her first record until she was 40. And just when her career was taking off, she was knocked off track by cancer.
Director Barbara Kopple keeps the camera trained on the singer through agonizing as well as soaring moments. After Jones’ hair begins to fall out from chemotherapy, Kopple follows the singer into a salon; Jones holds a handful of gray-flecked braids, tearing up as her head is shaved. Watching plentiful concert footage of her hair- and head-shaking gyrations, we understand the significance of losing this part of herself.
As Jones holes up (painting by numbers!) in a restful retreat in upstate New York with a nutritionist friend, her team (managers, bandmates) waits anxiously in the Brooklyn studio, knowing they need to plan for any outcome. They have a new album, and a tour planned. And they need Sharon to make it happen. We see her tantrums, her despair, and feel the burn of the chemo, the emotional pain of wondering if her body is going to fail her — potentially putting a group of talented musicians out on the street.
At one point, Jones makes her way up the stairs of a dilapidated storefront church in Queens. She takes two steps and rests, heaving from exertion and the effects of chemo. Five minutes later, the church band kicks into a funk/gospel beat, and Sharon is alive: twirling, leaping, shrieking like she’s possessed, singing like a goddess.
I came away regretting that I never got to see Sharon Jones perform live. If you did, that’s another reason to be thankful. This film, with its luminous hero and life-affirming message and soundtrack, will make you glad you’re alive.
