Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Middle East Downstairs, November 9, 2007
By WILL SPITZ | November 13, 2007
 DO YOU BELIEVE IN SHARON? Consider Cambridge converted. |
You can bet Amy Winehouse didn’t sweat like this. At a sticky-hot sold-out Middle East downstairs last Friday, Sharon Jones — backed by her eight-piece old-school soul/funk powerhouse the Dap-Kings, the same band who accompanied the aforementioned tabloid turtledove at Avalon back in May — was the anti-Amy. Whereas the most movement Winehouse mustered was some distracted hair twiddling, the 51-year-old “super soul sister with the magnetic je ne sais quoi†— in guitarist Binky Griptite’s Danny Ray–esque introduction — was an absolute dynamo, careering around the stage like the hyperactive love child of James Brown and Tina Turner, dancing with audience members, eliciting in-tune on-time “ooh-ooh†back-up vocals from the crowd.Jones and her band turned out a show similar to the one they played at the MFA’s outdoor Calderwood Courtyard last August, alternating between up-tempo burners like “Keep On Looking†and slower, silkier songs like “100 Days, 100 Nights,†the title track from their newest album on Daptone Records, with Jones doing the same mid-set shoes-off dance tribute to her African and Native American ancestors. The Dap-Kings, dressed sharp in suits, were tight as a gooseberry, subtly shifting grooves with a tambourine rhythm here and a harmony guitar line there. At the MFA there was plenty of room for folks to shake ass, a luxury lacking at the Middle East. But that didn’t stop people from trying, including one middle-aged couple who got down on top of a bench at the back of the mezzanine. Before the encore of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World†and their funked-up version of “This Land Is Your Land,†Jones said, “I feel like I’m at church having a Sunday-morning revival.†Consider Cambridge converted.
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