MUSIC HOME THEATER ON RECORD: THE DAP KINGS NEW RELEASES THE LATEST DVD, BLU RAY & VOD RELEASES BY JOHN MOORE The Funky Band Returns with Jon Batiste BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH It was exciting. Not just to pick covers, can recognize it. You could say that about KILLING FOR LOVE (IFC Films) OR NEARLY TWO DECADES THE but to work on some his new tunes. We Philly or Memphis too, but I don’t think If the March 1985 murder of Derek and Dap Kings were best known for their were able to get in there and tweak some any other place has such a definitive feel. Nancy Hanson in soulful collaborations with the late arrangements with him and that’s when it their Lynchburg, Sharon Jones. After the Augusta native’s really became fun, working on the music You can feel that culture the second you VA home had F and learning where he’s coming from. He’s happened in the death in late 2016, the band continued, step foot in the city. from New Orleans and there’s a certain feel It’s like a different country. Internet era it working with a number of artists including would have been their latest endeavor, a string of live shows and a certain way things swing. To me, if you’re not from there, you really can’t do Music is such a part of our lives. You were major news for with multi-instrumentalist Jon Batiste, months on end. the musical director of Late Show with it right. lucky enough to witness that firsthand in the final days of Sharon Jones. The suspects Stephen Colbert. were their But creative alliances are nothing new for Is this becoming a full-time band already? It was pretty deep being with her in We get questions all the time about, are the hospital and the whole band was daughter and her the band. Their work with Amy Winehouse German, college on Back To Black in 2007 and their 2012 you looking for another singer? Will you there. It was pretty crazy, she’d had these try and replace Sharon? That can’t happen. strokes near the end and wasn’t able boyfriend (a project with Booker T Jones, The Road diplomat’s son, no To Memphis, both won to talk. But she started moaning and her moans less). Add to that rumors of sexual abuse Grammy Awards. The from Nancy; the young couple fleeing to current tour will find the turned to melodies and it turned into “His Eye Europe after the crime and it would be our funky outfit delving into next murder mystery obsession. Killing For the rich musical heritage Is On The Sparrow” and “Go Tell It On The Love takes a sober eye look at the case, 30 of Louisiana as well as years later, and brings up the likelihood selections from Batiste’s own Mountain.” Eventually we were all singing. She that the boyfriend, Jens Soering, was catalog of rock, soul and likely set up by his girlfriend to take the roots music. was really singing but she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t blame for a murder she set up and possibly Recently INsite spoke with committed with someone else. This tell us if she was in pain, the leader of the Dap-Kings compelling doc switches between decades and their label Daptone couldn’t say yes or no, old videotaped courtroom testimony Records, bassist-songwriter couldn’t communicate. and current interviews with Soering, his Bosco Mann (aka Gabriel But she could sing. It was attorneys, investigators and the team that Roth) about the new tour, heartbreaking and it was prosecuted him. the last days of Sharon beautiful. Definitely one of Jones and the music of New the most memorable things HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS REVISITED Orleans. I’ll ever go through. It just (MVD Visual) shows that music, and those Just a couple gospel songs in particular, You guys started out years past the were so deep in her. You playing tiny clubs. How 40th anniversary talk about singing until does it feel to work the big of the iconic the wheels come off, she festival stages? documentary, Well you don’t have that was barely alive and still Heartworn sort of compression of singing her heart out. It was Highways, energy at a festival like in a amazing to have her last filmmaker Wayne club or a house party. The moments filled with music Price sets out stage is so much bigger and and I was very lucky to have to recreate, at you’re further away from been there with her. least in spirit, each other. With Sharon, one of the best she had the ability to turn You’ve been doing vinyl documents a festival into a house party releases long before out there on the Outlaw Country music and somehow connect with the recent boom [with movement. Heartworn Highways Revisited, each person. For this, it’s a Desco and then Daptone much like its predecessor, focuses on a little different. We’ve only Records]. handful of country (or at least country-ish) done one show so far with Jon. We’ll be There’s never gonna be so and so and the Oh yeah, since the ‘90s. At first it was musicians creating their own path, outside getting into these New Orleans grooves so Dap Kings. But we love playing music with just vinyl but then we went begrudgingly of the mainstream. There are fantastic we’ll be figuring out the pacing of the set as Jon, and I hope more comes from it. into CDs and then downloads and now interviews with folks like Robert Ellis, John McCauley, Shovels & Rope, Shelly Colvin we go along. we’re in the total matrix. But the format Do you think a record will come from this we love the most is vinyl. Every time we’re and others. He also brings back Guy Clark, making a record, we’re thinking about the Steve Young and David Allan Coe, all How did the collaboration with collaboration? It’s possible. Musically, we’re all willing LP. The sequence, the sides, the cover. But subjects of the first documentary, to check Jon happen? but he’s got his own band, too. But it’d a lot of people are listening to music now in. One of the best music docs to come out We’ve worked together a little before. in years. When we played the Colbert show with be fun to do and I think we have so much in the worst, most transient ways, with Sharon and Jon sat in with us and played common ground, we could do it right. sound worse than AM radio ever was. But I think our most loyal fanbase are the MY FRIEND DAHMER (Filmrise) some piano. He’s obviously a really talented My Friend Dahmer, based on the guy we started to talk about what we could But for now, the live show is the thing. people who truly enjoy playing a record. Yeah and there’s so much to look at with That’s who we’re making records for. autobiographical graphic novel by do together musically and got really excited cartoonist John Backderf, is an unnerving because we’re into a lot of the same music. the music we’ve selected. New Orleans is the deepest pocket of music America has You’re definitely an analog guy. look at the making of a serial killer. The ever had. The conversation of the different movie zeros in on the senior year of high Sounds like it’s a pretty cool meeting of Yeah, but I’m not dogmatic about influences has always gone back and forth it. It’s always about the process. We school of the odd and increasingly morbid the minds. Jeffrey Dahmer in his Ohio town in the It is. Jon’s got a lot of respect for the from funk to soul to country and rock. mostly record on eight tracks because And we’ve talked to Jon about this too. The it forces you to get the music right. It’s late ‘70s. He is befriended by a few boys music and the history. He’s not the kind in the school, including Backderf, thanks to just take a song and tear it up and Jamaican influence is strong. It’s just in the such a different experience to record air there. digitally, but it’s a much more satisfying to his habit of acting out in class. Dahmer smash a bunch of solos into it. He has a is played impressively by former Disney certain reverence for the details of the experience to actively play a record. You Such strong roots. It’s interesting to think have to have a record player and maybe a actor Ross Lynch, in the time-honored arrangements and he really takes a second tradition of actors rebelling against their to respect what makes some of these songs of the influence of just Alan Toussaint. room for it, or some place where you’re He wrote so many good songs. A lot of dedicating a certain amount of effort Disney roots, but the best acting comes so beautiful. He takes that same approach from Anne Heche, playing his mentally when he’s working on his new songs. things you might of as “New Orleans” in to it. As opposed to just playing music style is really his style. His songwriting in the background on the computer unstable mother. Creepy, unsettling, but strongly compelling, My Friend Dahmer style is so unique and recognizable. You while you do your emails. It’s how you What was it like once you got in the does a solid job of depicting a burgeoning can hear it. Really, the second you drop rehearsal room? experience it. We make music that’s psychopath. the needle on a New Orleans record, you worth the experience. PG 18 • May 2018 • insiteatlanta.com