Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, I Learned The Hard Way

By Noreen Sobczyk

Every music lover has undoubtedly been asked the same question at some point: “So what kind of music do you like?” It’s one of those tricky questions that sometimes results in a snarky answer, such as “the kind with melody and rhythm.”

But more often than not the question is answered with general genres or maybe specific artists. Even though I have a love for that sweet soul music, I stopped saying “Soul” or “R&B” a long time ago, because over the past twenty-odd years it’s come to mean something other than Stax or Motown. Something with a lot of cheesy stereotypes and status symbols and overproduced schlock that, to me, has little to do with soul.

For every person who’s ever complained they don’t make ’em like they used to, there is Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings.

You may have heard the scorching single “100 Days 1000 Nights” from their last album of the same name. Maybe you tuned in to NPR and heard them playing their amazing cover of “This Land is Your Land.” Or perhaps you saw Jones duet with Michael Bublé on Saturday Night Live.

However you became aware, let there be no doubt that Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings have brought soul back with I Learned The Hard Way. It seems Jones and her band have accessed some wonderful time machine and created an album in the spirit of what is now considered classic soul. Jones voice is true R&B, a seasoned blend of both Blues and Soul: the horns drift over and under and through the music, which is punctuated by back up singers whom one can imagine doing synchronized movements in matching shantung shift dresses.

In the track “Money,” Jones does a spoken intro before she sings about the need for that mean green. Her vocals evoke the pain so many feel about the economy, but she wails like she has the power to fix the situation, if only soul were the solution.

Jones also veers from traditional territory to touch upon child abuse during the unique and powerful “She Ain’t No Child No More,” while in “Window Shopping,” she confidently informs her commitment-phobic man she’s “through wicher window shoppin’ bay bay.”

I Learned The Hard Way is a great soul record; it’s refreshing to hear the real deal in 2010.

I Learned The Hard Way will be released on April 6. The band is currently touring; their next show is in Berlin on April 10. For tour dates, or to hear songs from I Learned The Hard Way, check out the band’s Official Site or MySpace page.