If anyone ever tells you soul music isn’t punk rock, point them directly to Sharon Jones.
When we spoke, she was in the middle of radiation. As in, that very day. “My last day was today,” she said, like someone mentioning they ran a couple errands. “I’m just hoping…” Her voice stayed steady, defiant even as she laid it out: second, maybe third recurrence, back pain, fear, fatigue, the whole grim Greatest Hits of a body trying to betray her. “I’m scared, but I’m still here,” she said. “You just take it one day at a time.”
But cancer doesn’t stand a chance against Sharon Jones. Not when she’s onstage. “There were nights I was in pain, barely able to lift my legs,” she said. “But when I got on that stage, the pain went away. I’d be up there like, how in the world did I move like that?” She laughed, big and soulful, like the sound could swat sickness across the room. “It amazed me too.”
That tenacity—plus the sweat-drenched, soul-reviving power of her live shows—is at the center of Miss Sharon Jones!, the documentary that captures her journey through illness and performance in real time. Most artists get their tribute films posthumously, a final act of delayed appreciation. Sharon saw hers premiere in Canada, sitting with the audience, watching her own life flicker across the screen.
“That was the first time I saw it,” she said. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it—no edits, nothing. Just sat there and watched it with everyone else.” She found out what her bandmates had gone through while she was out of commission—money issues, stress, relationships strained—from the film. “They didn’t want to put that pressure on me,” she said. “They just wanted me to get better.”
If that sounds like a punch to the chest, it’s the kind of emotional wallop that defines the Sharon Jones experience: music with guts, truth with groove. “That song at the end, ‘I’m Still Here’? We wrote that after the movie,” she said. “We just sat around the room and I started talking about my life. I said, how do we put the cancer part in it? One of the guys goes, ‘What about the big C crashed down upon me?’ And we ran with it. That’s how it works with the Dap-Kings.”
She wanted them all credited. “We all get credit. That’s why it says ‘written by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.’ Because that’s real.”
And in case you thought she was slowing down, Sharon casually mentions she’s working on a new album. “I still got maybe three or four songs where I need to go in and straighten out the vocals,” she said. “But we’re working toward another release for next year.” That’s not just optimism—it’s planning. “You gotta get it done by a certain time, so it can come out at the right time. That’s the music business. But for me, the main thing is getting back in and finishing the vocals. That’s what I gotta do.”
The cancer may be unpredictable, but Sharon is still thinking ahead, still out front. “We’ve already been trying some of the new songs out live,” she said. “I don’t always remember which ones we’ve done because it’s all on YouTube now—people post it and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we did that one.’”
She’s not particularly concerned about keeping things uniform. “All my songs sound different. Every one,” she said. “Gabe writes a lot of them, but everybody contributes. Different people, different ideas. That’s what makes it special.”
The irony, of course, is not lost on her. As her body fights to keep up, her popularity is soaring. The fanbase keeps growing, the movie’s picking up steam, and the band is on fire. “Sometimes I sit back and think, why now? Why is this happening now?” she said. “But I’m glad it is. I’m glad I get to see it. And I want to keep pushing so the guys can keep writing, keep going.”
That might be the most Sharon Jones moment of all. Even when the spotlight’s finally on her, she turns it outward. No ego, just funk. And love.
“I just want to get out there and do my best thing,” she said, “with the best of health. And I know it’ll happen. It will happen.”
Damn right it will.
And an earlier interview with Sharon & Kyle.
