Sharon Jones, Dap-Kings' latest album is Dap-tasticthis

By Brian Reinhart     5/16/10 7:00pm

Author's note: Three major mp3 download websites, Amazon, eMusic and iTunes, each have exclusive bonus tracks, as does the vinyl release. This review was written based on the eMusic version of the album, with the bonus track "Call on God."Every once in a while, I get an urge to turn back the clock to the 1970s, back when soul and R&B ruled the charts, Afros were bigger than the heads they topped and James Brown was shouting, "Ain't it funky!"

It sure was funky. And it still is, thanks to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, a talented R&B group who play like the '70s never ended. The Dap-Kings' brand of funk is so rhythmically tight and danceable that Amy Winehouse borrowed them as a backing band for her recordings and tours.

This is the Dap-Kings' fourth album with sassy vocalist Sharon Jones, whose voice exudes old-school cool. I Learned the Hard Way is darker than the groups' previous outings, and many of the songs' themes center around rejection and unfaithful lovers. The album's title track, "I Learned the Hard Way," sets this tone, and it is quickly followed up by "Money," a sort of melancholy recession-era reply to previous tunes of the same name by the Beatles and ABBA. The chorus? "Money! Where have you gone to? Money! Where have you gone to?"

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Lyrics throughout expand on the unhappy themes. "How many times can I lose this game of love?" Jones asks in "The Game Gets Old," and she sings, "Oh boy, you keep window shopping," to an unfaithful lover in another tune. Even the upbeat "Better Things," with its groovy electric guitar line, has Jones singing, "It's a brighter day then ever before, 'cause I don't think about you no more."

So the album is low-key, although it must be noted that low-key for Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings is still high-octane by most bands' standards - largely due to the increased importance of the backing vocals. Jones herself, at 54 years old, is not quite the star she was on previous Dap-Kings discs, for better and for worse, though she still possesses a powerful set of pipes. The best tunes here, like "Better Things" and "If You Call," prominently feature Jones' vocals: This isn't a coincidence.

As always with the Dap-Kings' releases, there are plenty of joys to be found. Check out the great saxophone solos on "Better Things" and "I'll Still Be True," the great backing vocals on "Without a Heart," and Jones' wonderful improvised chatter at the beginning of "Money." "If You Call" is a beautifully sad love ballad, and "Mama Don't Like My Man" makes for a zesty finish.

This is, to be sure, not the best album Jones and her band have made. That remains the riveting, more energetic Naturally (2005), which contains the unlikeliest and sexiest cover ever of the folk song "This Land Is Your Land." (That cover was included in the soundtrack of the movie Up in the Air.) But I Learned the Hard Way extends Jones and the Dap-Kings' streak of marvelous music from an earlier era. Yes, this is really no different from the best funk of the early 1970s, and yes, it is even recorded in analog sound using microphones from that era.

But Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings do not imitate the glory days of funk out of a lack of creativity. These are all original songs. They recreate music from the past because they are really damn good at it.

Eventually, with as antiquated a formula as these players use, there is always the risk that, as the first track warns, "The Game Gets Old." But, for Sharon Jones and her soul-train time machine, the game hasn't gotten old yet. This listener hopes that the game is just getting started.

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