People often think “Fish in My Dish” recorded by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings must be about catching a man or otherwise symbolic, but songwriter Gabe Roth says they’re wrong.
“She loved fishing, and she loved singing that song,” said Roth, co-founder of Daptone Records, as well the bass player, primary songwriter and producer for Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. “Every time, she’d go back to Augusta, she’d always go fishing. She’d go out in her little rowboat on the lake and throw in a line and smoke a cigar. That was one place she was always quiet and peaceful.”
“Fish in My Dish” appears on the album “Naturally” which marks its 20th anniversary this year. It will be rereleased May 2 – two days before what would’ve been Jones’ 69th birthday.
Roth said they needed one more song to fill out the album after Jones nixed one.
“It came about because there was a song she didn’t like. If she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t sing it. She had to relate to the lyrics and sing it from her heart. She was always real.”
He scribbled out the song, played it for her, and she was hooked.
Her authenticity and infinite energy were among the keys to her and the band’s success.
A native of North Augusta, Jones started singing in church and later sang in a wedding band. She loved interacting with her audience, which was fine when the audience was small, but a challenge as crowds got larger.
“She liked to get off the stage and dance with people,” he said.
She’d ask for 50-foot-long microphone cords, so she could mingle with the audience. Jones only stood at 4-feet-11-inches tall, easily disappear in the mix. Roth said they had to tell her people were paying money to see her, and not everyone could. She had to stay on the stage.
Undeterred, she did the next best thing. She invited the audience onto the stage with her.
Some nights, there might be a handful of people on the stage but other nights, she’d have as many as 30.
Not only did she bring audience members on stage with her, but she brought them into her world in other ways.
“She hit the stage and sang every note like it could be the last. That’s just how she was brought up. That was how she was built,” he said. “She left everything out there. She never held back. Even when she didn’t feel well, she would tell them. She told them when her mother died, her brother died, or she was struggling with chemo.”
The audience helped her take her raw emotional energy and turn it into fuel for her performance. That energy transfer would always leave the audience uplifted, he said.
“The supernatural thing about her was she would just connect to people. Her energy was infectious,” he said.
The band would often precede her on stage and give everything they had, but no matter what energy they had expended, Jones would always bring it up multiple notches.
Jones died of pancreatic cancer in 2016; the Sharon Jones Amphitheater in North Augusta is named in her honor.
Roth said her ties to the Augusta area were always important to her. She was always proud to share living in the same area that James Brown called home. They almost shared a birthday as well. Brown was born on May 3.
Roth said the 20th anniversary release is to honor her memory and keep her music alive.
“I feel a real duty to preserve her legacy. I don’t want people to forget about her,” he said.
“Naturally” has sold over 200,000 copies, with hit singles “How Long Do I Have to Wait” and “This Land is Your Land” streaming in the hundreds of millions—”staggering figures for a wholly independent release by Daptone Records,” according to a news release.
“It was also the genesis for the Dap-Kings’ collaboration with Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, the fruits of which having a lasting, indelible influence on soul, R&B and pop music in general,” the release said.
A new vinyl pressing will consist of a remastered 2xLP version that includes instrumentals for all tracks. In addition to the standard black LP, the Indie retail exclusive variant includes opaque orange color vinyl and the Daptone shop exclusive variant includes clear vinyl with orange splatter.
To pre-order the album, go here.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Yes, Sharon loved to fish and she would often call her good friend, Don “Ramblin’ Rhodes” to go fishing with her. Thanks, Charmain, for sharing this good news!