www.daptonerecords.com
www.myspace.com/sharonjonesandthedapkings

Sharon Jones was born Sheron Lafaye Jones in Augusta, Georgia on May 4th 1956.  Her mother moved to Brooklyn soon thereafter, however Jones was sent down south for a few months every year to stay with her family.  As a child, she and her brothers would imitate the songs and dances of James Brown, who shared their hometown.  Like many rhythm and blues entertainers, she began performing in church at a very young age where her voice would find a lifelong home and inspiration.  As a teenager in the early nineteen seventies, she began singing outside of the church in talent shows and with local funk groups.  Later she would make her living with a combination of sporadic session work as a mostly anonymous voice on various dance records (sometimes credited as Lafaye Jones), singing with wedding bands, and a handful of day jobs which included stints as both a prison guard at New York’s notorious Riker’s Island, and an armored car guard for Wells Fargo Bank.  In 1996 she was called in to sing back-up at a Desco Records studio session for 70’s soul legend Lee Fields.

Desco was a small independent specializing in traditional funk and soul pressed exclusively to wax.  Co-owners and producers Phillip Lehman and Bosco ‘Bass’ Mann had called Jones in on a tip from a sax player who was seeing her at the time.  As the other two girls never showed up for the session, Jones cut all the background parts for the session herself, and proceeded to cut the impromptu prison rap over Switchblade, which had originally been intended for a man.  Ironically, that rant (slowed down to make it sound like a man) would be her fi