Sharon Jones is no stranger to pain. On stage, the 57-year-old soul singer is a beacon of unwavering ferocity. Flanked by her eight-piece band The Dap-Kings, she howls tales of heartache and shimmies like Josephine Baker on heat.
However, 2013 proved to be a struggle for Jones.
In April last year, at a show in Idaho, the performer was struck by a sharp, inexplicable pain. She reportedly turned around to her band and winced briefly before shrugging it off and continuing the show.
A few months later, the singer sat in a doctor’s office and was told that cancer was destroying her digestive system. The fifth Dap-Kings’ album, Give The People What They Want, was almost ready to go after two years of production, but shelved in order to allow Jones to concentrate on her recovery.
But now, she promises she’s getting stronger again.
“I’m doing okay, I’m doing alright,” the singer says in a remarkably serene tone, speaking from a friend’s house in Sharon Springs. She has spent the last six months in the miniscule town in upstate New York undergoing chemotherapy.
After a gruesome operation (“…they cut from under my breast from down to the top of my navel, right, and they removed my gall bladder, the head of my pancreas, a foot, and half of my small intestine…”) Jones was left uncharacteristically enfeebled and unable to focus on music.
“I couldn’t even straighten up, y’know. I couldn’t even bend over from June to September, so I couldn’t do too much singing,” she says. “Basically, when I’m sick, it’s like my mind can’t concentrate on music when I’m not happy and when my body is going through changes.”
“…when I’m sick, it’s like my mind can’t concentrate on music”“I’m just like putty right now,” she says. “I think for the last two, three years I’ve been struggling a lot.”
In 2010 – long before the news of her diagnosis – the singer’s mother was also battling cancer. She passed away in 2011, and Jones says she hasn’t fully recovered from the loss.
“I’ve been going through all the heartache and pain and mourning. I still haven’t had a chance to mourn my mother. I’ve been going through a lot and people just see me on stage and I’m jumping around and happy, but no one knows, y’know, what’s really going on. I even performed the night my mother passed away that morning.”
Her extended family – The Dap-Kings – have helped ease her emotional burden over the last few months.
“Oh shoot, they’re nothing but supportive,” exclaims Jones. “I mean, when I was in that hospital, they were the ones that came in and gave me confidence. They said ‘Sharon, calm down, you take your time getting well. We’re going to be right here’.”
“They felt it all, I mean, they felt my pain. They cried – they wouldn’t cry in front of me – but I know they all shed their tears and they cried.”
Being out of work is as frustrating for the band as it for Jones. “Our job is to perform, so when you’re not doing your job, you’re not happy, so I know everyone is not happy. But they know I have no choice.”
Jones has her sights squarely set on her comeback show at New York City’s Beacon Theatre in February.
“I’m scared, of course. I don’t know what my first show’s going to be like, but that’s just life. And all my other shows, I never know what they’re going to be like. I just go on stage and what happens, happens.”
“This one of course I’m going to be coming out and looking different,” she says with a hint of trepidation.
“I’m not going to be wearing a wig…I just want to come out and be who I am”“This is new to me too. I mean, something like cancer. My whole body has been rearranged. I’m coming back with a whole different look. I’m not Sharon coming out in my little fancy dresses, my hair shaking with my braids. I’m coming back a bald woman on the stage and pretty weak.”
I’m not going to be wearing a wig. I’m trying not to wear a hat or anything. I just want to come out and be who I am.
The Beacon show will dovetail into a mammoth US tour before dates across Europe and most likely Australia by the end of our spring. “We will be seeing you guys this year,” Jones promises.
“My fans are so ready. I’ve got such devoted fans. When I read all the positive prayers and things coming from their hearts, I know I’m going to be ready.”
Give The People What They Want promises to deliver all of the soul singer’s characteristic sass and the fierce brand of soul that The Dap-Kings are renowned for. All of the songs on the album were finalised before the star’s diagnosis, however Jones says they’ve taken on a new meaning in light of the past few months.
The first single ‘Retreat’ was released in May last year before the announcement was made to put the album on hold. The song’s video shows an animated Jones stomping through a desolate desert plain, outstripping a pack of vicious cartoon wolves.
“That song was done over a year and a half ago. Almost two years,” explains Jones, “but the video changed the whole meaning of the song to me. Instead of me telling the guy to step back, it was me telling my sickness, my cancer, to step back. Y’know, here I come.”
“I’m doing better. I’m back,” she continues, then summons a typically wry cackle, “I’m back to give the people what they want.”
Give The People What They Want by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings is out now.
Watch the clip for ‘Stranger To My Happiness’ from Give The People What They Want here:
