Happy 69th Birthday, Sharon Jones

On the first time photographing SJDK: Valentine's Day 2009 at the Highline Ballroom, with Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens.

May 04, 2025

Sharon Jones was born on this day 69 years ago…

Part of why I started this Substack was to have a place where I could go back and revisit the 20+ years of music photos I’ve made. By far the largest body of work I have (about 30,000 images made from 2009-2016) is with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

Before Sharon’s 70th birthday arrives a year from now on May 4, 2026, I’ve given myself the directive to freshly edit everything and publish a photo book honoring her creative life amongst her beloved Dap-Kings and Dapettes.

I guess the best place to start is from the beginning: February 14th, 2009—a Valentine’s Day show at the Highline Ballroom (now Racket) in NYC. This was the first time I photographed SJDK. I don’t think I had a press pass or any prior communication with the label or publicist, I just showed up with a camera.

Having ultimately spent seven years trying to make the perfect Sharon image, I didn’t think I’d find any good images from this first encounter. But when I reopened the folder—BOOM! There Sharon was in her golden-era “100 Days, 100 Nights” splendor. It was all there from the start.

Setting the tempo is the razor-sharmp OG crew including Dave Guy, trumpet, Ian Hendrickson-Smith, sax, Neal Sugarman, sax, Tommy Brenneck, guitar, Homer Steinweiss, drums, Fernando Velez, percussion, Gabe Roth, bass, Binky Griptite, guitar and emcee, singers Kevin C. Keys, Saundra Williams and Sepia Black, plus members of the ‘Bushwick Philharmonic’ on strings and symphonic percussion. Two young men from the audience were invited up to dance with her as she loved to do as part of her stage act.

Label-mates Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens were the openers, and I’ll post those photos as a bonus below. Naomi sadly passed in February of 2021, and her musical director and organist Cliff Driver passed in March of 2016. Featured are Gabe Caplan, guitar, Bobby Watson, drums, Fred Thomas, bass, and Gospel Queens Edna Johnson, Judy Bennett-Gibbs, Bobbie Jean Gant and Cynthia Langston.

My biggest creative lesson from Sharon is that you are never done. Each time she took the stage was as important as the last. It was her best or nothing, and despite her silly humor and jeans and T-shirt un-diva-ness off-stage, she was dead serious about presenting the best performance that she could deliver—not for herself, but to you in the audience, her fellow musicians, and her higher power.

So this is for you, Shern, in gratitude of the adventure you took me on and for being the perfect muse to express what I love most about music. Happy Birthday.

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Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - February 14, 2009, Highline Ballroom, NYC.