Sharone Jones & the Dap Kings: Naturally

Chasing colorways across record shops in ailing Buick.

Sitting in a Caribou Coffee at the edge of suburban sprawl, I am waiting for a phone call. Our trusty Buick is leaking coolant and after limping it along the interstate it’s being pulled apart by a mechanic to determine the cause, and hopefully, the cure. I walked about a half mile towards town just to find my “options” limited — Caribou or Starbucks, hospital food, or airplane food. At the least the booths are comfy and 2 o’clock coffee here appeals to no one but me. 

It feels appropriate that my headphones are filled with the sounds of Brooklyn’s finest soul revival unit, Sharon Jones & the Dap Tones. The track, “Stranded in Your Love,” a gritty diesel duet of the highest order with Lee Fields, picks up on the room’s natural energy and helps me escape.

I picked up Naturally (the second SJDT LP) a few years ago at Plaid Room in Loveland, OH. I had slowly been filling the gaps in our Sharon Jones collection after belatedly seeing the doc Miss Sharon Jones! As soon as I saw Plaid Room had its exclusive color variant, it was a done deal. The August sunset red with yellow marbling underscores the fiery performances etched into the wax platter — a fitting colorway.  

Color variants, when done well, can add just the right accent to the turntable ritual. It’s like a beautiful frame for a photo or painting, the art on display must be front and center but sometimes the right staging can enhance the experience. 

There’s also a true art to doing color wax — those merges, splatters, pinwheels, and tri-color variants are like controlled burns. After falling down countless late night YouTube rabbit holes and watching videos from Furnace MFG or Memphis Record Pressing or Brooklynphono, the art of the pressing is the real deal. It’s why some of the true masters (like Wax Mage) command the prices they do. 

I remember obsessively stalking SoulStep Records website, manically refreshing the page in order to score Alana Royal’s Trouble Is in all its hand-poured vinyl glory. The limited runs, the snowflake-like creations, and the pursuit of the ephemeral all collide and blend into a singular, complimentary manifestation and testament to the sound laying in wait on these albums. 

It’s easy to get pulled into the gravitational pull of a good vinyl variant, spinning sounds into swirls in an otherwise still room. Good art deserves such undivided attention, great-looking wax inspires it.

For my money, punk and metal labels seem to get the aesthetic, and pace the rest of the industry for styles and modes. Labels like Relapse, 20 Buck Spin, Epitaph, and Revelation Records have long been the gold standard for variant pressings that took color vinyl in more expansive directions. The colorways went from solid variations to the exotic and wild designs now standard in variant pressings. Part of the game for these labels comes down to economics. How do you inspire multiple purchases of an LP? How do you help your touring road act who are (more and more) making ends meet by selling merch at shows? How do you add to a retailer’s wow factor? 

Limited variants become grails for the audience and fan—from the tour-only white/blue splatter reissue of Cave In’s Until Your Heart Stops to Louisville native Jack Harlow’s cardinal-apple red copy of Jackman (exclusively pressed for Guestroom Records) to Fiddlehead’s Furnace Fest clear w/ blue, black, and white marble version of Springtime and Blind to the pre-order checklist of 22 colorways announcing Green Day’s Saviors. It can be as overwhelming as it sounds, especially with big box stores like Target getting in on the action. Potentially, the variant game could easily be seen as another cash grab, scorched earth assault on the consumer dollar. It’s easy to be this jaded.

Of all the outlets that variants are dispersed through, the variants I typically gravitate towards are the ones directly tied to record stores. Of course, Record Store Day feels synonymous with these indie exclusives, but labels like Daptone and SubPop were in the indie-first mindset way before RSD became a cottage industry. The colorway variant that you can pick up at MadCity Music (Madison, WI) Gallery of Sound (Scranton, PA) or Easy Street Records (Seattle, WA) is a tangible bandage of honor– you’re choosing to support your local shop. They may feel like small decisions, but in a space where margins are razor thin (and getting thinner), the indie exclusive is a way to help ensure your neighborhood record store stays in the fucking neighborhood.  

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At some point, I get a call about the Buick and the damages. The auto shop orders parts and I won’t drive it home tonight. Walking the two miles back to my wife’s college office, I have some time to think about the concrete and asphalt sameness of strip mall suburbia. Once in a while, you’d find the occasional record store tucked in amongst the Subway, H&R Blocks, and faceless dry cleaning places. Those discoveries feel more fleeting to me. I’ve worked my way through Sharon Jones’ Naturally a few times by now and as I approach campus, I find myself rewinding to her cover of “This Land is Your Land.” From the brassy snarl announcing Ms. Jones’ entry into the song to the stuttering pace, her ability to render the gospel out of Guthrie’s protest song feels like a dusky ray of insight cutting through prematurely drawn curtains. When we get home, I pull the record from its sleeve and wait for that light to bend across our sound system.