Sharon Jones Make Learning Easy on "Hard Way"

Best known for her hit “100 Days, 100 Nights,” Sharon Jones is one of the hardest working yet most underappreciated artists in the music industry.  She is always on tour, whether or not she has a new album to promote.  She pops up on shows like “Saturday Night Live” to sing with Michael Buble.  She is even featured on David Byrne’s new album Here Lies Love.  On I Learned the Hard Way, joined once again with horn section The Dap Kings, Jones shows that she knows how to turn an album full of songs about heartbreak into a fun, upbeat journey.  Here, she more than borrows from soul artists of the 1960s; she creates her own R&B classics with exciting results.  Packed with tight, gripping tracks, Hard Way is the best example of funk and soul this side of the 1960’s.

As the title explains, Jones has gone through her share of heartbreak.  Most of the songs weave an intricate tales about shattered love.  On “The Game Gets Old,” the horns regally signal Jones’ arrival as she .  The song is at times reminiscent of classics “Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “Elements of “Lean On Me.”  Jones is unlike other artists in that she doesn’t do the typical love songs; rather, she talks about a love who “played with [her] soul,” breaking free from that traditional “broke my heart” cliché.  Rather than fighting it, she accepts her age and loneliness, singing about how tired she is of men who play games with her.

Other songs focus on Jones playing the part of the wronged woman.  On the title track, a thumping, angry drumbeat leads into her feisty musings about how “Now it hurts me inside just to hear your name.”  On the slinky guitar infused track “Better Things to Do” there are peals of laughter as Jones howls and growls at the man who did her wrong.  Sticking it to the man who dumped her, she proudly proclaims that “I’m a better woman than I have been / ‘cause I don’t think about way back when.”  The aforementioned guitars pop up again on “She Ain’t a Child No More,” a surprisingly dark tale of a woman who’s husband drunkenly beats her every night.  Jones maintains her staunchly powerful demeanor as she croons “Her heart still soft, but her skin got bit, she ain’t a child no more."

The band only departs from its “love hurts” format on a few songs.  One, “Money,” finds Jones wailing about the cruelty of wealth as she cackles, “Without money, what would we do?  Money is the root of all evil but ain’t nothing evil about money!”  It shows true innovation when an artist can mix a blast of neo-retro soul with a message about today’s economy.  It creates a lovely time-warp effect that brings together the sounds of the present day with back in the day.  At first glance, instrumental track “The Reason” is just that, a song that doesn’t feature the album’s storyteller.  Upon further listen, it becomes easier to pick up on the bluesy saxophone telling its own tale about despair, dripping with heat on a street corner in a city.  The soulful wails of the Dap King’s horns tell their own story, providing a worthy counterpart for the heartbroken Jones.

The only flaw on the album is also its greatest triumph: I Learned the Hard Way doesn’t deviate from the formula of the group’s first three albums. With its bouncy groove, saucy vocals and bubbly horn interjections, the album is another stellar notch in Sharon Jones’ belt.