Intelligencer

knew i was going to be famous travel, play music, be happy and well-off later in life,” Sharon Jones says as she had been among them. Jones, who lives leans in close across her kitchen with a friend upstate, leans back on her counter. The lead singer of the soul stool and looks at the small kitchen TV outfit Sharon Jones and the Dap- playing The View on mute. “I’m 57 years old, IKings is talking about the time her mom and things are finally happening for me.” 128 MINUTES WITH … persuaded the then-skeptical 18-year-old to It’s a remarkably sunny thing to hear visit a tea reader, Madame Cohen. The from someone who, less than a year ago, soothsayer predicted a close friend’s house when she was finally reaching her full artis- Sharon Jones would catch fire but that everyone would tic and earning powers, was diagnosed with Lounging at home with survive. Weeks later, Jones’s pastor called stage-two pancreatic cancer (survival rate: soul’s recovering leading lady. saying a fellow church member’s house was less than 10 percent). Jones’s past sounds burning, but nobody was hurt. So she like a novel. There was a stint working as a thought back to the other prophecies. You’ll correction officer, a brother who went mad

Photograph by Jesse Dittmar february 10, 2014 | new york 13 Intelligencer

after a teenage brush with LSD, a mother THE NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS HUNTS POINT Students and teachers at P.S. 48 who shot at her husband when he was step- asked the state to officially ping out during her pregnancy. ­Cancer is recognize an unmarked the latest hardship. HARLEM African-slave burial ground. Jones, who is barely five feet tall, joined A woman and her dog were forces with the nearly all-white Dap-Kings rescued from the in the late nineties, when an ex-fiancé Harlem Meer linked the band with the front woman. The after her pooch music has reached No. 15 on the Billboard fell through 200 chart, but as recently as a few years the ice. ago, she was living in the Queens projects with her mother. SOHO Thieves stole RICHMOND VALLEY $2,000 “We would go to Europe and come back worth of furry Patrons at the and I would still have to go to my church, boots from the Ugg Page Plaza Diner Australia store. HOWARD BEACH ‘I need $200,’ ” she says. The band finally chucked dishware A tropical-fish managed to break through back home, after at each other after importer pleaded one man allegedly college students took up her cause. Jones guilty to sneaking disrespected is blunt on the topic of her fan base’s race. 39,548 piranhas another’s girlfriend. NEW BRIGHTON “When I first played at the Apollo, the Police used a nasal into town by owner didn’t even know who Sharon Jones spray to revive a labeling them as silver tetras. was,” she says. “The Apollo had never seen man from an opiate so many white people coming uptown.” overdose. She’s performed with Phish (“I didn’t even know how to spell it”) and headlined Bonnaroo with the Dap-Kings. Her CDs are now featured at Starbucks and she has sung with Michael Bublé. Still, Jones tends to get round of chemo. “The band knows if Sha- doing, so I just chose these past few years categorized with the college-radio crowd. ron ain’t make it, nobody works.” to be by myself.” “I can’t say white people, but people that are Since Jones was still fighting the disease She points to the TV as someone rolls into the Internet, they call our music under- when promotion for the album began, the a joint on the news. “When Colorado legal- ground. What the fuck?! I’m not cursing; video for its first single, “Retreat!,” is ani- ized weed I saw some guy on TV say that 37 I’m not talking no political stuff about mated. (In the second video, “Stranger to people died from overdosing on marijuana. killing. Why is it underground?” My Happiness,” she offsets her sparkly Bull! I’ve smoked so much weed that Jones was on vacation in Hawaii when shimmy dress with a sleek bald head.) Not I should be dead. You might black out, but she noticed her first cancer symptoms last that she wasn’t involved in every last detail: you get back up. Matter of fact, I’ll go spring—yellowing eyes, itchy skin. “From She had strict Photoshopping instructions upstairs and take a little puff.” June to September I couldn’t even walk on the album art and video. “I was like,You Jones heads to the “healing room” where without bending over. I couldn’t sing, and better make sure to lighten my eyes up and she keeps her collection of vaporizers, cit- I didn’t listen to any music,” she says, reach- remove my scar,” she says, pulling down the ing “mostly” medical reasons for her intake ing behind her to open the oven door for neckline of her shirt to show me a mark on these days. “I used to smoke with the band some extra heat. “I wasn’t thinking about no her upper chest. for pleasure every three hours,” she admits. damn stage.” Jones spends most of her time now “On tour I’d make sure we’d have the weed The Dap-Kings were forced to delay either with doctors or with Megan, the when we got there, but I don’t worry any- their fifth studio album, Give the People close friend who offered up an extra room more because I’ve got my tablets. Dronabi- What They Want, while Jones went in her yellow, porch-wrapped home in nol.” She tries out a few pronunciations for through treatment, though she still man- ­Sharon Springs, New York, after Jones her prescribed THC pills before landing on aged to perform in the Thanksgiving Day discovered the cancer and wanted to the right one. Still, “I feel for the guys,” she parade between chemo sessions. “I was so move out of the city. “A lot of people call says, picking up a sandwich bag filled with sore I was in bed recovering for the next me gay because they don’t see me with greens, separating one inch-long nugget three days.” The album was finally released anyone,” Jones says. “I don’t give a shit. from the rest. “That’s all I want. The rest is last month, just two weeks after her final I know I’m not, and I know what I’m for the band.” lauren schwartzberg

35,788 35,705 It’s like the recession never 32,917 ECONOMICS n.y. earners percent happened. At least when it 27,844 earning of n.y. 45% 53% Millionaire comes to the most recent >$1 million millionaires data on New York State’s annually who live Rebound million-dollar-plus earners. in nyc 2008 2009 2010 2011 2010 2011 SOURCES: GANNETT AND NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF TAXATION AND FINANCE PHOTOGRAPH: BEN GABBE/GETTY IMAGES (BLOOMBERG) BEN GABBE/GETTY IMAGES PHOTOGRAPH:

14 new york | february 10, 2014