Timeline
1996
Sharon Jones (born Sheron Lafaye Jones), whose professional music career at this point
has been limited to wedding bands and sporadic session work on various dance records,
is called in to sing back-up at a Desco Records studio session for 70s soul legend Lee
Fields. Co-owners and producers Philip Lehman and Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann)
had brought her in on a tip from a sax player, Jones’s boyfriend at the time. When the
other two girls never show up for the session, Jones cuts all the background parts herself,
and proceeds to cut the impromptu prison rap over “Switchblade.”
1996-2000
For the next four years, Jones sings frequently alongside Lee Fields, Joseph Henry, and
Naomi Davis as part of the Desco Super Soul Revue, backed by Desco house band the
Soul Providers. Desco releases a handful of singles in her name, including “The Bump
& Touch,” “Damn It’s Hot,” and “You Better Think Twice,” as well as versions of
funk classics “I Got the Feelin’” and “Hook & Sling.”
In the UK, the blossoming Deep Funk scene led by DJs Keb Darge and Snowboy,
among others, shows support for these Desco releases and paves the way for Jones and
the Soul Providers’ first international tour in 1999, where her command of the stage earns
her an overnight title as the “Queen of Funk.”
2000
In the early part of the year, Desco Records folds. Though the Soul Providers will not
perform again, it isn’t long before Jones and Mann regroup in another formation. Bassist
Bosco Mann (Gabriel Roth), guitarist Binky Griptite, organist Earl Maxton (aka
Victor Axelrod of Antibalas and Ticklah), percussionist Fernando “Boogaloo” Velez,
trumpeter Anda “Goodfoot” Szilagyi and Baritone saxophonist Jack Zapata (aka
Martín Perna, also of Antibalas) come together along with tenor saxophonist Leon
Michels (who later leaves the group to form the El Michels Affair, as well as his own
label, Truth & Soul) and drummer Homer “Funkyfoot” Steinweiss from the Mighty
Imperials, a young instrumental organ funk group that recorded at Desco. Now for the
first time, the group is billed as Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.
Early 2001??
In anticipation of a summer residency the group landed at a club in Barcelona, a rough
eight-track recording studio is rigged up in the basement beneath the Afro-Spot, a local
kung-fu dojo which doubled as an Afrobeat nightclub and headquarters for Antibalas’
frontman Duke Amayo. After a few weeks of tracking and mixing, the band’s debut
full-length, Dap Dippin’ with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, is completed. Though
few hundred copies are pressed to sell on the road, it will take several months and the
birth of a new record label before Dap-Dippin’ is commercially released.
Late-2001 – Mid-2002
Saxophonist Neal Sugarman, whose organ-driven Sugarman Three combo had given
Desco two of its most prominent releases, and Gabriel Roth join together to form
Daptone Records. With the intention of continuing on where Desco had left off,
Daptone’s debut release is the Dap-Dippin’ album in May 2002.
2003
Daptone Records relocates to what was then a dilapidated two-family house in Bushwick,
Brooklyn. The entire Daptone extended family, Sharon included, work on converting the
upstairs bedrooms into the offices and the first floor into what would become the highly
regarded recording studio.
March 2004
After having spent the past three years touring extensively and building steadily upon a
growing reputation as the unrivaled frontrunners of old-school soul and funk music,
Sharon & the Dap-Kings return to the studio, which is now outfitted with a sixteen-track
tape machine, to record their second album, Naturally. The Dap-Kings’ line-up now
consists of Binky Griptite and Tommy “TNT” Brenneck on guitar, percussionist
Fernando “Boogaloo” Velez, drummer Homer “Funkyfoot” Steinweiss, saxophonists
Neal Sugarman (tenor) and Leon Michels (baritone), Dave Guy on trumpet, and Gabriel
Roth (Bosco Mann) on bass.
2005-2006
Naturally hits the streets in January and sets Jones and the Dap-Kings loose on a
relentless touring schedule, which, by its end, encompasses over 250 shows during 21
tours in 14 countries on 3 continents, and also marks the group’s late-night television
debut, on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The band also goes into the studio with Mark
Ronson and Amy Winehouse to record her multi-platinum, GRAMMY-award winning
album, Back In Black, and Sharon appears as Ella Elephant on Verve Records’ Baby
Loves Jazz: Go Baby Go!
May 2006
In honor of Jones’s 50th birthday, Daptone Records presents a Soul Revue at New York’s
Irving Plaza. May also marks the first time the band tours Australia.
Winter 2006
The band slows its touring schedule to make time for a return to the studio to record what
will eventually become 100 Days, 100 Nights. Sharon also performs with Lou Reed at a
special show at Brooklyn’s St. Anne’s Warehouse.
January 2007
Sharon tours with Lou Reed in Australia as part of his stage adaptation of his 1973
album Berlin.
March 2007
Jones & the Dap-Kings perform at SXSW (their second year there), prompting a feature
in the Village Voice.
Spring/Summer 2007
The Dap-Kings go on the road with Amy Winehouse, acting as her backing band for her
first ever US tour, which included performances on the Late Show with David Letterman
and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The Dap-Kings also appear as the house band for
ESPN’s ESPY Awards. During this same time, Sharon performs with Booker T. & the
M.G.s, and begins work on the Denzel Washington on his film (released December 2007)
The Great Debaters, in which she appears as a singer, and also appears on the
soundtrack.
October 2007
100 Days, 100 Nights, which goes on to sell more than 100,000 copies, is released to
widespread critical acclaim. Sharon and the band (who had just been named one of
Entertainment Weekly’s Ten Most Exciting Artists in its Fall Music Preview) sell out
New York’s Apollo Theater and leave soon after on a European tour. The album receives
glowing reviews in magazines like Billboard, Rolling Stone, Esquire, URB, Interview,
Ebony, Magnet, Nylon, and XLR8R, and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times,
Boston Globe, the Times of London, and the Washington Post. The Dap-Kings are also
featured in a four-page style spread in VIBE.
Fall/Winter 2007
YouTube premieres the back-and-white video for “100 Days, 100 Nights” (which as of
late 2009 has over 1.13 million views and counting), and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
tour the US and Canada. Features, including in NPR, Newsweek.com, SPIN, the New
York Times, Pitchfork, Under the Radar, Downbeat, Filter, MOJO, No Depression,
and the New Yorker, continue to pour in.
Early 2008
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings perform “100 Days, 100 Nights” on the Late Show with
David Letterman in February, and appear at the Womad Festival in Australia and New
Zealand in March.
April-October 2008
Despite having been on the road for practically the past six months, Sharon Jones & the
Dap-Kings complete a full festival tour, playing at Coachella, the Roots Picnic,
Bonnaroo, Roskilde, Virgin Mobile Festival, Lollapolooza, Outside Lands,
Monolith, Austin City Limits, CMJ (where they played a Perez Hilton Party), and
VooDoo Festival, among others, and also found time to open up for the Dave Matthews
Band and Feist at the Hollywood Bowl and appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
They also closed up the season of the Central Park SummerStage to a packed crowd
with a special Daptone Revue. They are consistent critical favorites, receiving accolades
across the board, called “the unassailable afternoon highlight” by the Baltimore Sun, and
“…a terrific live act” by the Associated Press, as well as named the “Best of ACL” by
the Houston Press and described as “a live exorcism set to the most blazing, out-ofcontrol funk soundtrack laid down by anyone not called the JBs" by the Philadelphia
Weekly.
It was enough to have Entertainment Weekly to declare them the winners of their Best
Showmanship Award, prompting one of the site’s critics to write, regarding the
Coachella performance, “Ms. Sharon Jones and the glorious Dap-Kings were about to
present the best set of the day, and the show that now ranks among the best I’ve seen in
my life. Actually, I could almost be convinced that her set is that good, every single time."
During this time, the Dap-King horns also appear on Al Green’s GRAMMY-winning
album, Lay It Down, having been recruited by Roots’ drummer (and album producer)
?uestlove.
Spring 2009
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings cover Shuggie Otis’s “Inspiration Information” for the
lauded Dark Was The Night charity compilation. They also appear at the benefit show on
May 3 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, alongside the National, Feist, and the
Dirty Projectors. Said BrooklynVegan about that performance: "…[Sharon Jones & the
Dap-Kings'] onstage power, especially in that massive room, was something no one all
night had come close to." Later that month they appear on the Late Show with new host
Jimmy Fallon, and in June they perform at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles
and at the Chicago Blues Festival.
Summer/Fall 2009
After yet another full summer of touring, including stops at the Essence Music Festival
in New Orleans and San Diego’s Street Scene, the band finally goes back into Daptone
Studios to begin recording their follow-up to 100 Days, 100 Nights.