Description
Daptone’s first full-length release, Dap-Dippin’ with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings launched this phenomenal artist onto the soul scene. Nearly 20 years later,and several years after her untimely death of pancreatic cancer in 2016, comes this great collection of covers that she made her own. Finding major success relatively later in life, she had been working day jobs and singing in wedding bands for decades before making her recording debut (singing backup for Lee Fields) in the mid 1990s. She brought to that session, just as she would to Daptone, a stylistic approach and set of techniques from another era, and Jones spent the rest of her life not just defining retro soul for a new generation, but defying the retro part of that label.
Covers were always a significant part of Jones’ repertoire, a means of connecting her to the past and also linking the past to the present, and that gives Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In) the weight of a career retrospective. It might even reveal more about Jones than a greatest-hits collection would, emphasizing her decisions about which songs to sing and how to sing them, navigating established soul classics and usually holding her own against the originals. She conveys a sense of staunch determination on Fontella Bass’s “Rescue Me,” as though she’s not the one who needs saving. And she strips the breathless singing and lush production from the Marvelettes’ “Here I Am Baby,” replacing them with a rawer vocal and a sinewy guitar groove. Originally released as a RECORD STORE DAY ltd. ed. vinyl only release, we are thrilled that we can now also access it on CD….grab a copy ASAP!!
