Sharon Jones's Soul Revival

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2016

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sharon Jones burst onto the music scene about 10 years ago — she was backed by The Dap-Kings, a straight-out-of-the-1960s funk band with a fantastic horn section. And at just 5 feet tall, Sharon had all of the funk and spark of James Brown. The band was made up of young hipsters, and while Jones was decades their senior, she’d dance circles around them onstage. She’d lead church choirs and had a day job as a prison guard, before finally breaking into the music business. Her swift rise was cut short by cancer — she died Nov. 18 at age 60.

We’d recently featured Sharon in a story about “This Land is Your Land” (she and the Dap-Kings did a terrific cover of the song). In it she explained how Woody Guthrie’s spoke to her in a surprising way. Today we’re releasing a special extended cut of her part of the story — plus her 2007 interview and performance in our studio.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	from PRX.
0:06.7	Studio 360.
0:10.3	Hi, this is Kurt, with some extra bit of podcast.
0:15.1	It sure seems like one of the ways we're going to remember 2016 is as a year in which we lost some genuinely
0:24.1	great groundbreaking musicians, Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen. And then last week, somebody
0:32.1	who's not quite a household name, but was a beloved legend in New York City where I am and we do this show.
0:41.4	Sharon Jones.
0:43.0	How long do I have to wait for you, honey, before a girl like me can move on.
0:51.3	Ooh, baby, tell me how long do I have to wait for you, baby, down to the
1:07.1	Out of the 1960s funk band with a fantastic horn section.
1:11.6	And Sharon, tiny five-foot-tall Sharon, had all the funk and charm and spark of James Brown.
1:18.7	Oh, baby, tell me how long on.
1:21.6	Do I have to wait for you, honey?
1:24.6	For a girl like me can move on. Oh, baby, tell me how long. Sharon became successful late in her early. Sharon became successful late in her early 50s.
1:42.3	And then just as she was really getting going, she was diagnosed with
1:47.3	pancreatic cancer. It was treated. She returned to the stage, but the cancer returned.
1:54.5	On the 18th of November, she died. She was only 60. Sharon had been on my mind recently. We just replayed a story about
2:05.9	This Land is Your Land and how Woody Guthrie's song had become a kind of alternative
2:10.8	national anthem. She and the Dap Kings had done a brilliant cover of it for the movie Up in the
2:16.2	air, so we asked her about the song.
2:19.4	And it turns out that this land is your land spoke to her in a really surprising and beautiful way.
2:25.8	Here's an extended cut of that part of this story.
	...

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