Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Ignite the Apollo

These guys make Amy Winehouse sound like Clay Aiken.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, above, with a lucky audience member (who popped and locked his way into our hearts.)



Harlem's Apollo Theatre bustled with swarms of people fixated on Sharon Jones. She wore a tasseled flapper dress, and seized every opportunity to make it dance. On tour to promote their new album, 100 Days 100 Nights, Jones and the Dap-Kings tested the waters by kicking things off in New York. And, let's just say, the waters are mighty fine.

Jones invited a coterie of male admirers to climb on stage (one at a time—she’s a lady, after all!) and shake their moneymakers. It could have been an awkward stunt, but the crowd was so busy moving themselves, that few people even took notice. After telling a tale centered on ancestry, Jones shook to beats inspired by her African and Native American predecessors.

The new album, recorded in an analog studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, has all the makings of an instant classic. It crackles and pops, while we snap along to each track. The consensus has been overwhelmingly positive. Critics (like this one) are salivating, while, collectively, Jones and the Dap-Kings have been enlisted by talent like Kanye West, Mark Ronson, Lou Reed, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Rufus Wainwright, and Ghostface Killah.

That said, forget the celebrity friends. It’s hard to notice anyone or anything else when Jones takes the stage, tassels dangling from her shiny dress. —N.H.

Download Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ “100 Days, 100 Nights” here!