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Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings to kick off 38th annual BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival

Free Concert June 8

February 23, 2016 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Photo by Jacob Blickenstaff
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BRIC has announced that renowned Brooklyn-based soul act Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will open the 38th annual and newly renamed BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival with a free concert on June 8 at the Prospect Park Bandshell (8 p.m. at Prospect Park West and Ninth Street).

Just as the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival has grown over the past 38 seasons to become what Time Out New York calls “NYC’s quintessential warm-weather concert experience,” Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings have spent their 14-year career crafting an electrifying live show, earning adoration.

Prior to the free concert, BRIC will host the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival Opening Night Gala, honoring independent music and film entrepreneur Peter Shapiro. Shapiro is known for such celebrated endeavors as Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn, Las Vegas and London), The Capitol Theatre, Wetlands Preserve, the U2 3-D film and the Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well concerts in Chicago’s Soldier Field. Shapiro is also founder of Lockn’, a four-day camping and music festival in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as Jazz & Colors, an experiential music event encompassing the 843 acres of Central Park. He is a longtime supporter of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival and his commitment to the New York City music community is an inspiration.

Since releasing their first album in 2002, the Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have performed all over the world and have collaborated with some of music’s biggest names, including Prince, John Legend and Mark Ronson. Sharon herself has collaborated with the likes of David Byrne, St. Vincent and Michael Bublé.

Their latest album, 2014’s Grammy-nominated “Give the People What They Want,” was written and recorded at Daptone’s studio/headquarters in Bushwick (affectionately known by many as “The House of Soul”). This time, the band (drummer Homer Steinweiss, guitarists Binky Griptite and Joe Crispiano, conguero Fernando Velez, trumpet player Dave Guy, tenor saxophonist Neal Sugarman, baritone saxophonist Cochemea Gastelum and bassist/producer Bosco Mann) brought in background vocalists the Dapettes (Saundra Williams and Starr Duncan), who have been touring with the band for more than a year, to round out the sound. The Guardian proclaimed that the album “breathes passionate new life into the past,” with Rolling Stone adding, “It remains a national treasure and an instant soul party.”

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