SHARON JONES AND THE DAP KINGS-100 Days, 100 Nights

They don’t make music like this anymore. Even Amy Winehouse doesn’t, frankly, and I’m a huge fan of her retro “Back in Black” album on which The Dap Kings play backup to Amy’s sultry old jack swing. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are straight out of the 1960s, with a sound so authentic it’s hard to believe it was created this year. That’s because “100 Days, 100 Nights,” in addition to musically sounding like something from Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight’s classic periods, features lyrical old school content. “Something’s changed in your eyes, I can see it when you walk through that door . . . I can tell you and I ain’t right no more,” she cries on Something’s Changed. Then on Nobody Baby, she begins an “ooo-wee,” a laugh, and then several James Brown guttural “uhs.” Jay-Z (over)used the uh-on-the-beat at the beginning of (too)many of his cuts, but it takes a soul singer like Ms. Jones to really make you feel the beat.

Yeah, the soul singers of today, preferring X-Tina/American Idol vocal gymnastics over the pain-is-joy of true R and B don’t make music like this
anymore. But Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings do. So be grateful, dammit, and buy this record as a fresh change of pace from the over-produced hype of modern R and B.

100 Days, 100 Nights.

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