It seems almost uncanny that though this album was completed before 57-year-old soul queen Sharon Jones went through her battle with cancer, the first song Retreat!, feels like precisely the right sort of strong, defiant, triumphant track that one could battle cancer with.
Retreat is a command, a direction, a
threat to the bad things snapping at her heels. "I'll make you wish that you were never born" she calls scorchingly. "What a fool you'd be to take me on". It feels like an immediate hit, and a powerful, punchy opening statement for her sixth album with outstanding band the Dap-Kings, under the guidance of bassist/producer Bosco Mann.
It was initially slated for release in August last year, but after Jones found out she had pancreatic cancer, all plans were put on hold. Thankfully she's now recovered and is ready to head out on tour, all guns blazing, but somehow that life event colours many of the lyrics on this album with a new poignancy (We Get Along particularly), and gives those soaring horns a certain euphoria.
Jones plays the perfect woman scorned on You'll Be Lonely, questions satisfaction on Stranger To My Happiness, and turns a precarious relationship into prime ballad material on Making Up And Breaking Up. She makes the most of a slinky groove on Long Time, Wrong Time, and People Don't Get What They Deserve is an awesomely righteous, snappy, dance-along hit.
The Dap-Kings continue to effortlessly pluck the best from classic RnB, funk, and Motown, and maintain total mastery of their nine-piece arrangements, which makes Give The People What They Want an album which easily meets the high bar set by 2010's I Learned The Hard Way.
