Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. After Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.

The Dap-Kings, the Daptone house band, are notable for their collaborations with Mark Ronson, including their contributions to Amy Winehouse's Back to Black. The band continued to work and perform together through 2018.

In the mid-1990s, artist Phillip Lehman and musician Gabriel Roth (also known as Bosco Mann) founded a band called the Soul Providers, and began recording an album of James Brown-inspired instrumentals and vocal collaborations with deep funk recording artist Lee Fields. After hearing Sharon Jones, a corrections officer turned singer, record backing vocals for a Fields track, Lehman and Roth recorded a solo track of Jones singing "Switchblade", a song which had been intended for a man's voice. This track along with another Jones solo, "The Landlord", were included on the Soul Providers debut album, Soul Tequila, released in about 1996 on the now-defunct French label Pure Records.

Lehman and Roth then started a new label in New York called Desco Records, first on the lower East Side above an umbrella store and later with a studio and distribution office in the basement of an apartment building located at 440 West 41st Street in Manhattan. They reissued Soul Tequila as a vinyl-only LP and renamed Gimme the Paw, and included only one of the Jones collaborations, "Switchblade".

Desco showcased its artists- The Soul Providers and Sugarman Three with shows which were revues and released their music on vinyl 45-rpm records. Jones, backed by the Soul Providers (who had become the Desco house band), released three 45s for the label. Recording dates were deliberately omitted from the labels and the records were often marketed as being released in the 1970s. Two other Soul Providers albums were released, an instrumental soundtrack to a Sam Lung kung-fu film, The Revenge of Mr Mopoji, credited to Mike Jackson and the Soul Providers, and a solo album by Lee Fields, Let's Get a Groove On, for which the Soul Providers provided the backing. Desco recorded, "Funky Sitar Man" by Ravi Harris and the Prophets, released on BBE Record.

In 2000, Lehman and Roth parted ways, and the Soul Providers disbanded. Lehman set up Soul Fire Records; Roth started Daptone Records with Sugarman 3 saxophonist Neal Sugarman. The next studio location from 2000-2002 was at 340 Grand Street in Williamsburg, in the basement of Amayo's Afrospot and served as the headquarters for Daptone recording projects and the band Antibalas. A new group, the Dap-Kings, was formed, consisting of label owners Roth on bass and Neal Sugarman on saxophone, plus original Soul Providers: guitarist Binky Griptite, organist Earl Maxton, saxophonist Martin Perna percussionist Fernando Velez, and trumpeter Anda Szilagyi. Joining them were two young members of The Mighty Imperials, whose album Thunder Chicken was the last release on the Desco label: tenor saxophonist Leon Michels and drummer Homer Steinweiss, who both had also been touring members of The Soul Providers previously.

The band secured a four week, 20 show engagement at La Boite, a club in Barcelona, Spain, and recorded an LP, Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, in 2001. A few hundred copies were pressed, so that sales during the residency would provide financial support for what would have otherwise been a financially draining trip. Promotional copies were sent to funk DJs and reviewers, and the album was officially released as the first LP and CD on Daptone Records in 2002, and attracted an enthusiastic review from quarterly hip-hop and funk magazine Big Daddy.

After the album came out, three 45s not on the album were released: "What If We all Stopped Paying Taxes", released in 2002 just ahead of the U.S. election, was a militant anti-war statement denouncing the Iraq War. "Genuine (parts 1 & 2)" (2004) was a hard funk record. Their cover of "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", released in 2005, was recorded for a KFC commercial in 2002 but was never used.