Sad news ILOSM fam, Soul/funk singer, Sharon Jones, passed away on Friday, November 18, 2016. If you’re not very familiar with Ms. Jones, just know that she was a very big deal in music, especially when it came to the preservation of true soul music.

She was also a true fighter, but sadly, after her three year battle with pancreatic cancer, the disease was just too intense for her body to fight it off any longer. She was 60 years young.

Below is part of the statement her rep released today:

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Sharon Jones has passed away after a heroic battle against pancreatic cancer. She was surrounded by her loved ones, including the Dap-Kings.”

In recent years Sharon wasn’t seen as much, but now we know that was due to her cancer battle. She fought a tough fight and left a great legacy in the world of music. Her collaborations with the band, Dap Kings, somehow connected to a younger, broader audience and together they acquired a large fan base of many races and backgrounds, who normally may not have been exposed to soul music through the traditional media platforms.

 

SHARON WAS A LATE BLOOMER IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

Sharon didn’t release her first record until she was 40, but she hit the ground with her feet running and went on to sell millions of records, despite her considerably late start in the music game. One thing she never did though was compromise who she was for the sake of appealing to her 20-30+ year old fan base:

“I’m not trying to ride anybody’s coattails…I’m just doing my thing and people are coming to us,” Sharon Jones stated in a 2008 interview.

SHARON JONES: ‘I WAS TOLD I WAS TOO FAT, TOO BLACK FOR MUSIC INDUSTRY’

According to a Rolling Stone report Sharon Jones was always trying to break into the industry, but record labels shunned her away:

“I wasn’t what they was looking for,” she told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “They just looked at me and they didn’t like what they saw: a short, black woman.” As documented in Miss Sharon Jones!, a record producer told the singer in the 1990s that she was “too fat, too black, too short and too old.” “I looked at myself and saw ugliness,” she said in the film.

TOUCHING VIDEO OF SHARON DISCUSSING HER CANCER BATTLE

In 2015 a documentary titled, Miss Sharon Jones,” captured Sharon’s cancer battle and her will to get back on stage after undergoing serious cancer treatments in 2013 and 2014. She broke down while talking about her fear and the struggle of readapting to life with cancer. Check out the video clips below…

Sharon Jones, rest beautifully Queen with no more fears and no more pain. Gone but definitely not forgotten.

-ILoveldSchoolMusic