In Defense of Ska Ep 33: Jessica Lipsky (It Ain't Retro: Daptone Records & The 21st-Century Soul Revolution)

Soul music has never gone away, but different versions of it come and go. In 2007, when Sharon Jones, 51 at the time, released her third album 100 Days, 100 Nights, she reached a significant audience. That made a lot of people declare "retro" soul back. But Sharon wasn’t retro, and the story around her success was much more complex. It is tied to the record label Daptone Records and her backing band, the Dap-Kings. 

The story of the label and the bands associated with them (Sharon, Charles Bradley, The Frightnrs, and Amy Winehouse who worked with the Dap-Kings on your brilliant Back to Black album) is documented in the new book It Ain't Retro: Daptone Records & The 21st-Century Soul Revolution. It is filled with amazing stories about the unlikely rise of this cool music scene.

On this episode of In Defense of Ska, we speak with the author, Jessica Lipsky. We discuss several of the great artists on Daptone, like the brilliant and haunting rock steady group The Frightnrs. We discuss Jessica’s ska roots and some of the ska articles she’s published. Two years before every major outlet declared ska back, Jessica wrote about it for Billboard. And of course, we talk about Amy Winehouse, her love for ska, and how she had plans to record some ska songs on what would have been her third record. 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.