Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (CD)

All Music Guide

Sharon Jones, the bigvoiced lead singer of the DapKings a band who's recently begun making their name known outside those enthusiasts of the Daptone label and the reaches of the soul community thanks to appearances with Amy Winehouse and work for Mark Ronson, including in a version of Dylan's "Most Likely You Will Go Your Way ( I'll Go Mine)" is no musicworld neophyte. 100 Days, 100 Nights is just her third fulllength with the DapKings, but Jones has been singing onandoff since the 1970s, without much of a break until she began working with her current label. Meaning, she's certainly paid her dues, and she has enough life experience behind her voice to make the words she sings sound that much truer. Because soul music and this isn't neosoul, or contemporary RB, but straightup Stax and Motown brassy soul is so much more than the actual lyrics themselves, it's about the inflection and emotion that the vocalist is able to exude, and Jones proves herself to be master of that, moving fr...om coy to romantic to defiant easily and believably. The album is much smoother, even gentler, than her previous releases, and though the DapKings still power their way through the ten songs with bright horns licks, inspired drumming, and staccato guitar lines, there's a deeper, bluesier edge to the record, heard in "Let Them Knock" or the slower "Humble Me." "Don't let me forget who I am," Jones croons in the latter, her voice rising to a sweet falsetto at the end of the phrase. It's a very clean record, not overproduced but wellproduced, with a lot of great pop moments tucked in between the brassier, funkier bits. The title track relies on a sultry organ and a minor vamp to make its point, while "Something's Changed" uses strings and punctuated sax and bass as the singer drops a bit of her lungs out, bringing a kind of immediacy to her words, as if the actuality of the situation around her hasn't quite set in enough for her to wail about it, as if she's just realizing it and we're right there to hear about it. But that's the magic and power of Sharon Jones and the DapKings: their ability to convey passion and pain, regret and celebration, found in the arrangements and the tailend of notes, in the rhythms and phrasing, and it is exactly that which makes 100 Days, 100 Nights such an excellent release. - Marisa Brown , All Music Guide Read more Less