Sweet Soul Music

Revisiting an organic funk classic which regenerated the groove.

- Chris Roberts

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Naturally
(20th Anniversary Reissue)

It was old but it was new. In 2005, a year before they played on much of Amy Winehouse's Back To Black - you may have heard of it - The Dap-Kings released their bamstorming second album. Naturally revived the soul and funk sounds of the late 60s and early 70s, and whereas the “neo-soul” of Erykah Badu, D'Angelo and Maxwell had smoothened and deepened modem R&B, this “retro soul” embraced the instrumentation and arrangements of the vintage greats: Motown, Stax, Invictus. Emerging from Brooklyn, the group had tried a few odd angles before catching the sound that clicked. Their debut album was a hard-driving funk set with a bizarre cover of Janet Jackson's What Have You Done For Me Lately; they'd elsewhere essayed an anti-Iraq War single and a cover of The First Edition’s Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) for a never-used KFC commercial.