A new album from Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings is always an eagerly anticipated event. Any regular at Funkalicious will know how much we appreciate these guys – we just can’t stop playing their catalogue. So what do we know so far about this? Not much. Only that it is titled “I Learned The Hard Way”; The Impressions style cover shot is taken in the yard of the “House of Dap” recording studio in Brooklyn; it is slated for a May 4th release; and that it is likely to be a mixture of both soul and funk styles, played to perfection by craftsman-level musicians, sung by the strongest female voice in the business and produced to a standard reflecting, but seldom achievable back-in-the-day by expert analogue producer Gabriel Roth. Oh yes, we can expect greatness!

Oh and we have a tracklisting too:

I Learned the Hard Way:

01 The Game Gets Old
02 I Learned the Hard Way
03 Better Things
04 Give It Back
05 Money
06 The Reason
07 Window Shopping
08 She Ain’t a Child No More
09 I’ll Still Be True
10 Without a Heart
11 If You Call
12 Mama Don’t Like My Man