Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings @ El Salon

By Christopher Bussmann - Bop and Beyond - 04/28/2005

Opening with a funky instrumental set, the Dap-Kings had bodies moving to their grip-tight buggalo, priming the audience for their four-foot, eleven inch soul dynamo front-woman; and when she took the stage the place exploded. Sharon can sing, she can dance, and she can connect with the fans - bringing them on stage to sing-along and dance, telling them stories about 'back in the day' and how each song came about. Sharon Jones is a performer in the true and versatile sense of the word. And she is a star.

With her band on fire, Sharon ran through a good mix of new and old tunes as well as two sexed up, funk intensive covers of songs far removed from the genre: Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately?". By the time they laid into their encore of "Lay It In The Cut," from their debut album Dap-Dipping, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings had the crowd thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly pleased. In the span of just two short hours, they managed to tear the house down, rebuild it, torch it, and dance on its ashes.

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