Remembering Sharon Edition: The Olympians, Wonderlux & Hannah Williams And The Affirmations
By Aaron Stein Nov 30, 2016 • 12:02 pm PST
The Olympians: The Olympians
In a year in which many musical legends have sadly left us, the passing of Sharon Jones has been especially hard to take for many of us. Hers was a light that shone so brightly, she will be dearly missed. Thankfully, her legend will live on in many ways. This week I feature three new albums that, in some way, carry her torch. Of course, Sharon’s home team at Daptone will continue to put out fantastic music and my first album, the self-titled full-length debut from The Olympians is exactly the kind of funktastic greatness we’ve come to expect from that label. Led by Toby Pazner, The Olympians overlap with bands like The Dap-Kings and Menahan Street Band. The album is a visionary set of instrumental groovers: grandiose arrangements filled with horns and strings and plenty of the good stuff.
Hannah Williams And The Affirmations: Late Nights & Heartbreak
Like Ms. Jones, Hannah Williams has a big time soul voice and a killer backing band in The Affirmations. Their second album, Late Nights & Heartbreak just came out and is percolating with funkity-funk highlights. The first two tracks set the groovy stage with the first single “Tame In The Water” kicking things off and then an (somewhat surprisingly) absolutely killer soul cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed And Confused.” Really, that cover alone is worth checking out, seriously slamming. But there are many such “aw yeah!” moments throughout. The genre is in good hands.
Wonderlux: Christmas Eve
For some reason, when I think of Sharon Jones, I think of the holidays. It’s probably mostly due to the Christmas album she put out last year, which I consider to be one of the best all-time in the genre and should be required listening for this and all future holiday seasons. Another great addition to the genre is the brand new Christmas Eve from Wonderlux. This is an all-instrumental album of kind of surf and garage rock arrangements. There’s some real inventiveness as they take familiar and not-so-familiar classics and cross-cut them with some serious reverbed groove. I like how they take a single song as a foundation and then build with riffs from other Christmas songs and their own tangential vamping. Lots of fun for your seasonal gathering playlist… along with plenty of Sharon Jones, of course.
