Sharon Jones, is a fighter with not one ounce of quit in her. She has wound through a long perilous road to get to where she always wanted, singing before an audience. The former wedding singer and corrections officer was once told by a Sony executive that she was too old, fat, short and black to have a singing career has fought the odds and won everytime. But her hardest battle couldn't be conquered so easily. Miss Sharon Jones, a documentary debuting at SXSW documents Jones' toughest opponent, cancer.
As the film reveals poignantly, Sharon Jones' dream had finally come true. Her band, The Dap Kings, had recorded four albums that weren't necessarily hits, much less begin to secure her future, but they were enough to allow them to tour and eventually make a new album. Then, the sh*t hit the fan and Ms. Jones was in for the shock of her life. The website Austin360 takes up the story, "Miss Jones seemed primed for the biggest release of her life. All of the pieces of the puzzle had seemingly come together and that's what made the news that came next sting extra hard. A stage 2 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2013 sidelined the release of a finished record called Give The People What They Want and put her future in jeopardy."
Documentarian Barbara Kopple documented this very difficult phase of Ms. Jones' life and provided a heart wrenching portrait, made all the more so as her band, not flush with cash themselves, are sidelined while their leader fights the most important battle anyone could face. Luckily this documentary has a happy ending as their album does get a release and the band has its biggest exposure, via its appearance on Ellen.
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