Bob Koch
"Soul of a Woman" by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
The good folks at Daptone Records gave us all an early Christmas present on Nov. 17: A new album by the late Sharon Jones, with longtime band the Dap-Kings. As I write this it is more than a year since Jones passed away in November 2016 after an extended battle with cancer, and it is still hard to believe that her irrepressible energy was stilled by anything short of the Apocalypse (which the rest of 2017 has somewhat resembled, I guess). Unlike some posthumous releases, Soul of a Woman is a fully-realized effort and another major work in the group’s catalog.
The group and Jones worked on the album’s songs throughout the last years of her life, essentially since the sessions for Give the People What They Want. But at least one song here does have much earlier roots: The album’s majestic closer, “Call on God,” is a song that written by Jones in the 1970s for E.L. Fields’ Gospel Wonders.
Daptone founder Gabriel Roth (aka, bassist/songwriter Bosco Mann) gives the full story in an excellent Vulture.com article (as well as a welcome update on what the group, and the Daptone family in general, is up to in the aftermath of a devastating 2016 and 2017, which witnessed the loss of not only Jones but also Charles Bradley and Frightnrs lead singer Dan Klein). The Dap-Kings initially worked on the song during the sessions for 100 Days 100 Nights, with Jones on piano, but the song is only now seeing the light of day. The track was completed by adding background vocals by the Universal Church of God Choir — including members of the Gospel Wonders.
"Call on God" by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
The albums recorded by the Dap-Kings with Jones over the years have each had a distinct character, and Soul of a Woman is no different. An easy description would be that this is their “pensive ‘70s” collection, along the lines of melancholy semi-conceptual classics such as The Chi-Lites’ A Lonely Man or Millie Jackson’s Caught Up. Not that this is downer music; overall the album just has a heavier feeling than the often buoyant jams fans are used to hearing from Jones and company.
For this listener, it so far has been difficult to not overlay a sense of mortality onto some of these songs, due to the context of their creation and the time they were recorded in Jones’ life. Whether that double meaning was intended by the creators or not, there does seem to be an extra level of intensity from everyone involved in this music. Nearly everyone in the band wrote a song on the album, as did Daptone producer/engineer Wayne Gordon; it’s truly a group effort. Soul of a Woman is also one of their best albums, and a fitting tribute to a singer for the ages. (Daptone DAP-050, 2017)
