Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 3: 2012-2016

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having some computer trouble. Let's see if this works and gets posted correctly.

I've posted two previous albums in this series. This is the third and last. As I mentioned before, the basic idea is that Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings released an album of cover versions recently, after almost never putting cover songs on their albums. But they missed many covers they did over the years, so this collects all the good ones I could find.

Eight out of the 11 songs here remain officially unreleased. Most of those come from concert performances. But the sound quality remains high just the same. I kept a high standard and didn't include any songs that were somewhat rough.

Sadly, Sharon Jones died of cancer in 2016, so that's why this series ends in that year.

01 Goldfinger (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
02 I Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues - Do Nothin' 'Til You Hear from Me (Joe Jackson with Sharon Jones)
03 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
04 It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World (Ed Turner & Number 9 Rock and Soul Revue with Sharon Jones)
05 What's Going On (John Legend & Sharon Jones)
06 Bring It on Home to Me (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
07 Tell Mama (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
08 Sing a Simple Song - I Want to Take You Higher (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
09 The Letter (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
10 Midnight Rider (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
11 Every Beat of My Heart (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15249597/SharonJns_2012-2016_SoulfulCovrsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the SXSW festival in 2013.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 2: 2010-2011

A week or two ago, I posted the first of three albums of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings doing all covers, and here's the second. This was in response to their new all-covers album, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)." All the albums I'm posting in this series avoid any of the songs on that official album.

Six of the songs here are officially unreleased. But the sound quality is very good for that sort of thing. It helps that three of the songs come from an in-studio Internet show, and another comes from a TV show. So only two are from concert bootlegs.

The song "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" included a long section in the middle where each band member was introduced and then played their instrument for a few moments. I cut all that out except for the intros to the two back-up singers, since I like what they did with those. I ended up cutting the song length about in half, which is why "Edit" is in the title.

01 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love [Edit] (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
02 Dancing Together (David Byrne & Fatboy Slim with Sharon Jones)
03 Road of Broken Hearted Men - When the Saints Go Marching In (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
04 Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
05 Hot Fun in the Summertime (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
06 It's Uncanny (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
07 Wild Horses (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
08 You Know I'm No Good (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings with Wanda Jackson)
09 Messin' Up (Steve Cropper & Sharon Jones)
10 Come On and Save Me (Steve Cropper, Dylan LeBlanc & Sharon Jones)
11 I'll Be Around (Lee Fields & Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328491/SharonJns_2010-2011_SoulfulCovrsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at the Apollo Theater in New York City in 2010.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 1: 1998-2009

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were a fantastic retro-soul band, until Jones died of cancer in 2016. They made a point of flling their albums with original songs. But earlier this month, they released the album "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)" that consisted entirely of covers, performed back when Jones was still alive. 

This gave me the idea to compile all the other cover songs they did. It turns out there were a lot. In fact, I found enough for three albums. Here's the first one. In my opinion, Jones was a great singer, and the Dap-Kings were a very fine backing band for her, and I love their retro soul sound. But if they had one weakness, it was in the strength of their original material, which was hit and miss. So, in my opinion, they really excel doing these covers of the songs they love.

Most of the songs here have been officially released. The exceptions are "Sweet Jane" plus the last three songs. As an aside, I'm amused by the "Sweet Jane" cover, which is a "duet" between Jones and Lou Reed, who wrote the song when he was part of the Velvet Underground. It started out with Reed singing it, as he usually did, but then Jones totally took over and left Reed far behind, relegating him to singing some backing vocals near the end of the song. Not exactly a typical duet!

Anyway, the sound quality of the four unreleased songs are excellent, so the whole thing sounds very good. I put the song in rough chronological order by year, with the exception of "Amazing Grace," which fit better as the last song. Note that version is rather short, less than a minute long, but I figure it's better than not having any of the song at all.

01 I Got the Feeling (Sharon Jones)
02 Got to Be a Love (Greyboy with Quantic & Sharon Jones)
03 Sweet Jane (Lou Reed & Sharon Jones)
04 Wild about That Thing (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
05 It's Tight like That (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
06 We Shall Not Be Moved (Sharon Jones With Billy Rivers & the Angelic Voices of Faith)
07 That's What My Baby Likes (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
08 The Way We Lived (Wax Tailor with Sharon Jones)
09 Baby [You've Got What It Takes] (Michael Buble & Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
10 You Can't Hurry Love (Ralph Sall Experience with Sharon Jones)
11 A Change Is Gonna Come (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
12 There Was a Time (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
13 Amazing Grace (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15133658/SharonJns_1998-2009_SoulfulCovrsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California, in 2008. For the text I tried to go with the retro soul look that matches the music.