Miss Sharon Jones, R.I.P. (1 Viewer)

[PayOrPlay]

Soul/funkster Sharon Jones, leader of the critical favorite Dap-Kings, died today at age 60. Her battle against pancreatic cancer, first diagnosed in 2013, has been widely documented, and a documentary about her by the Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple was released just a few months ago. The August 2016 story linked below is well worth the read.

And I also think it worth mention that on my computer, the ads running down the right side of the L.A. Times page are for Gleason. The ad algorithm got it right for once.

Obituary: Sharon Jones, big-voiced Dap-Kings soul singer, dies at 60 - LA Times

Feature from August 2016: As 'Miss Sharon Jones!' hits theaters, the soul singer and cancer survivor tours on - LA Times

The soul singer Sharon Jones, afflicted repeatedly with cancer but prone to vibrating as though possessed by James Brown's ghost, looked disconcertingly ill. Just behind a stage where about a dozen musicians from her band the Dap-Kings were sweating and jumping, electrifying an amphitheater crowd on this sweltering Sunday, Jones sat, shaking and shivering. She pulled a hood up over her head, bald from chemotherapy treatments, and seemed to disappear inside herself. She clutched a blanket around her body and asked for some water.

"Where am I?," the subject of Barbara Kopple's new documentary "Miss Sharon Jones!" said meekly to an assistant. "Camden," the assistant replied, kneeling and taking Jones' hands in her own. "It's Philly, but technically it's Camden. Remember, you flew in this morning?" Jones barely seemed to register the information. The band kept going as fans of Hall & Oates, which was headlining, filtered into the BB&T Pavilion, a 20,000-seat outdoor venue on the banks of the Delaware River, across from the Philadelphia skyline.

Then, in the manner of some newly hatched alien species, Jones started to slowly stretch her arms. She unfolded herself from her low chair and stood up. Her mouth moved in a series of low-rumble vocal exercises. She began walking in a circle and, a moment later, when a band member called her name to introduce her, she bounded out from behind the stage to take the microphone.

Within a minute, Jones’ silver shoes had flown off as she bounced in ecstatic rhythm, her mouth — her whole body — inhabiting her style of hot soul.

"I don't know how many of you know me," she said to the audience between songs, using a preacherly cadence. "But I'm battling. No matter how much pain I'm in I can always sing. This has been hell I'm going through."

The crowd, whose size was growing as the set moved along, began to clap along. "I say to the cancer, get up and get out. GET. UP. AND. GET. OUT."

 

[Optimus Prime]

Very sad to hear

Been a fan of hers for years