Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Hailing from the same town as the Godfather himself, this Augusta, Ga girl surely proved wrong those who originally told her she "wasn't pretty enough" and was "too fat" to have a successful career in music.

Getting her start singing in the churches of her youth, Sharon Jones graduated to talent shows and occassionally with local funk bands of the mid 70's.During that period she made a decent living doing session work as a backing vocalist on a variety of gospel, soul and disco often going uncredited or occassionally being credited as Lafaye Jones . By the early 80's Jones sound was deemed no longer fashionable and so she returned to church singing and the occassional wedding band. Having mostly exited the music scene she took a job as a prison guard at New Yorks infamous Riker's Island and also as an armoured truck guard for Wells Fargo.

Fast forward to 1996 when Phillip Lehman and Gabriel Roth , co -owners of the now defunt Pure Records label arranged a recording session with deep funk and soul legend Lee Fields. Acting on a tip from the session sax player who was dating Jones at the time, she was one of three called in to do backing vocals for the sessions. Jones was the only one of the three to actually show up , and after having completed the sessions herself, she had so impressed Lehman and Roth that they had her record 2 solo tracks which later appeared on the Soul Providers album entitled Soul Tequila.

Pure Records morphed into Desco Records, which released three ,now highly sought after, 45 singles by Sharon Jones . Desco Records disbanded in 2000 after differances in opinion between Lehman and Roth.

In 2002 , Gabriel Roth went on to found Daptone Records.One of the first artist signed to was Sharon Jones Piecing together a band culled from members of groups who had earlier recorded for Desco, the Dap-Kings were born. With a backing band intact, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings recorded Dap-Dippin' with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. This was Daptone Records first full length release.

Biringing immediate attention to the herself, the band and to Daptone Records she was highly sought after once again. In 2005 they released Naturally, and 2007 brought 100 Days, 100 Nights. With much touring, and guest appearances she quickly became the spearhead of the revivalist funk and soul movement.

The three tracks available for download here are 3 different versions of "How Long Do I Have to Wait" from her 2005 release "Naturally". The first is the original cut as it appeared on the album. The second is a reggae inspired remix by Ticklah from the recently released Daptone 7 inch 45 single, and the third is a dub remix also by Ticklah which was the flipside of the aforementioned 7 inch single.

Until next time, in the words of the great Don Cornelius , I wish you PEACE, LOVE, AND SOUULLLLLLL!

Original Release - http://www.divshare.com/download/6334798-f3d
Ticklah remix - http://www.divshare.com/download/6334820-cae
Ticklah dub remix - http://www.divshare.com/download/6334828-990