A legacy that lives on…
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[7.57]
Alfred Soto: A valedictory to the late Sharon Jones, whose Dap Kings reward her with a track of impressive tautness. From most anybody else the hopes and dreams she shares would provoke the cynic in me.
[7]
Julian Axelrod: The posthumous single is a strange beast. While it’s tempting to read these songs as thesis statements for the careers that preceded them, they usually aren’t recorded as such. Instead, a random loosie is forced to shoulder the weight of an artist’s legacy. But while “Matter of Time” is a slight outlier in Sharon Jones’s oeuvre, it’s a fitting coda to her singular existence. It’s an impassioned plea for patience and perseverance at a time when it’s tempting to throw in the towel. The message is all the more stirring coming from Jones’s incredible pipes; after all, this is a black woman who worked as a corrections officer between session gigs and didn’t release her first album until she was 40. If Jones can record this call to action after undergoing chemo and suffering a post-election stroke, what excuse do we have? In a way, “Matter of Time” captures what made Sharon Jones a legend: she never stopped fighting.
[8]
Rebecca A. Gowns: My favorite Christmas music is James Brown’s Christmas records. On those songs, everything comes together perfectly. The band jams, the horns glisten, the verses explode into big choruses and deliciously long vamps. The lyrics to those songs are wonderful, expressing everything I’m feeling at the end of the year: equal parts utopian hope, political disgust, and deep wells of love and compassion for everyone we meet. This song is very much like one of those songs. It guts me, it moves me, it makes me dance. I can’t think of a stronger statement than saying: I hate so much about this world and I know it’s going to change because it has to change. Because if it won’t change, it’s going to kill us. Because for every evil thing, there’s too much to love. Too much to strive for. This song is a yearning, a warning, and above all, a grooving. Such a good parting shot.
[10]
Ryo Miyauchi: Usually such blind optimism don’t pass by me too well with the music cooled off, but it wouldn’t pain me one bit to let the late Sharon Jones dream. She and the Dap Kings seem less urgent about reaching that future of peace than getting through just one more day. But like the best of soul before her, she makes that distant time full of hope feel like just days away.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Plush, funky bass and shiny, expanding horns weirdly stuffed to the right while the thick, dusty drums and grimy yet goofy guitars filled out with the gurgling, purring organ. But Sharon Jones’s powerful, soulful voice remains at the very middle, front and center, as she deserved to be.
[9]
Brad Shoup: I still have my gripes about the Daptone/Antibalas obsession with simulacra, but the Kings are getting better with the details — they have the sway of a late-’60s Impressions cut, but they add a couple chicken scratches and buzzy brass filigrees. And Jones — who strapped the nascent scene on her back — works the waves like the craftsperson she was.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: The “oh yeah! (oh yeah!)” call and response sets up what I’m sure was a killer track live. On record it’s tight enough that you could set an atomic clock by the rhythm but it’s oddly inert. From one angle, the lyrics are kind of inspiring, but from another they’re kind of banal. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings always did a great job of reproducing the sound of the past, but I guess I’ve never fallen for their actual songs divorced from the best context to hear them in, i.e. in a crowd full of smiling, dancing people where the shortcomings wouldn’t have mattered. Despite my score, Sharon Jones herself is a 10.
[6]