Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way

2010 release, the fourth album from the Modern Soul heroine and her ace band. The record marks a bold step forward for a band who almost single-handedly stewarded today's return of Soul music to it's more traditional sound. I Learned the Hard Way was produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records' House of Soul studios, the record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax. Sharon's raw power, rhythmic swagger, moaning soulfulness, and melodic command set her firmly alongside Tina Turner, James Brown, Mavis Staples, and Aretha as a fixture in the canon of Soul music.