From the ACL Taping Program on June 5, 2008:

With a retro sound that goes beyond just an homage to the past, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are bringing the classic soul and funk to another generation of listeners. In the late 90s, Sharon Jones quickly earned the title “Queen of Funk” for her work at Desco Records. When Desco, an independent label specializing in traditional funk and soul pressed exclusively to wax, closed it’s doors because of
financial issues, Jones and Desco co-owner Bosco Mann put together a new group. In 2001, the new group Sharon Jones & the
Dap-Kings, released their debut CD Dap Dippin’ with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings to pick-up where Desco left off.

Over the next three years, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings would tour extensively and built a reputation as the unrivaled frontrunners of
old-school Soul and Funk music. In 2006, the band returned to the studio. The resulting 100 Days, 100 Nights features more extensive songwriting and arranging contributions for a deeper more soulful return to traditional R&B roots. Blender wrote: “The band replicates the surface effect of Otis Redding ballads, New Orleans jams and Motown pop-soul down to the last tambourine rattle.”

Both Jones and her Dap-Kings have also been busy with other projects in the last few years. Jones is featured on Rufus Wainwright and They Might Be Giants most recent recordings.The Dap-Kings recorded half of the music on Amy Winehouse’s album Back to Black including the hit single“Rehab” Spin wrote “Her crack band of Dap-Kings have enlivened everyone from Kanye to Amy Winehouse, but
their most natural habitat is in Jones’ Aretha-like tales of sex, independence, and the good Lord himself.”

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CAROLYN WONDERLAND

 

From the ACL Taping Program on June 5, 2008:

Carolyn Wonderland is a triple threat with diverse songwriting, soulful vocals and guitar goddess skills. One critic wrote “If you put Melissa Etheridge, Chrissie Hynde, and Dick Dale in a blender and hit puree, you’d get a pretty potent mixture called Carolyn Wonderland.” With her latest release, Miss Understood, Wonderland is on the cusp of national stardom.

Originally from Houston, Wonderland received numerous music awards there starting when she was a teenager. As the lead singer fronting the band Imperial Monkeys, Wonderland releases include 1995’s Play with Matches, 1997’s Bursting with Flavor. Of Bursting with
Flavor, Billboard wrote “Wonderland and her Imperial Monkeys have built a strong regional following the old-fashioned way: by
crisscrossing the state in a van, playing gig after gig wherever someone would have them. The road-worthiness of the band’s sound is evident.”

Wonderland’s solo work includes 2003’s Bloodless Revolution, which The Austin Chronicle wrote, “Wonderland’s voice is as muscular as her name is evocative.” Her latest CD, Miss Understood was released in February to overwhelming critical acclaim. Produced by Asleep At
The Wheel’s Ray Benson, the CD features Wonderland at her finest.

“The rest of the country is finally catching on to what lovers of creative, heartfelt bluesy rock in the Houston area have known ...for years: Carolyn Wonderland...has what is called ‘the goods’...intelligent songwriting, intricately crafted grooves and a voice that has to be heard to be believed,” wrote the Colorado Springs Independent.

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