Neal Sugarman Interview

Zurich, 14.09.2024.

I’m kicking off a new interview section with an interview of Neal Sugarman, co-founder of Daptone Records (Penrose Records / Wick Records), saxophonist at Sugarman 3, member of the Dap-Kings (also Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings), producer and collaborator on numerous albums such as Black to Black by Amy Winehouse.

Hi Neal! I always loved seeing Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings play live. I really miss that. Sharon was amazing. What was it like to work with her? How was touring Europe with Sharon?

Working with Sharon was probably the highlight of my life, just being part of this band. I knew we were kind of the first ones that were really bringing that sound back.

When you think about that band, it was Gabe Roth (a.k.a. Bosco Mann) on bass who produced so many beautiful records, Tom Brenneck on guitar. At the time Leon Michels was the other saxophone player at the very beginning, who is just producing tons of stuff. Homer Steinweiss on drums, who has played on a million records. Everyone in that band was making great records on their own. And when we were together, it was all about backing Sharon and making her sound great, and it’s just super memorable.

There was never a bad night. Every time we got on stage with that group of guys, we were just ready to play soul music at the highest level we possibly could. And it felt to me when we were doing it on a regular basis and making those records, that might have been on the same level as what they were doing at Stax Records back in the day. It felt bona fide.

And of course, Sharon – not only in the studio was she singing at such a high level, but then on stage she just had so much energy. All the time. It was great. It was very real, she had this gift. So when she was singing to 2000 people, everyone in the audience felt that she was singing to them. She learned the importance of that, maybe even early in her career, singing at weddings. This idea that you move around and you communicate with people. I’ve not seen that since. Sharon put 100% and left everything on the bandstand and when she came off the bandstand, she was just like this small woman with a baseball cap, rolling through the airport. And no one would know that when this person was going to go on stage she would electrify thousands of people.

No ego. She was pure, rhythmic, she’d get out and she would just sing and dance. She was never trying to do something other than who she was. She was able to really just let go. And I think Charles Bradley had that, too.

What was it like to work on Back to Black? Any anecdotes about that time with Amy Winehouse?

When we were in New York, we would always go once a week to Mark Ronson’s studio, especially the horn section of The Dap-Kings. And he’d always have some work for me, Dave Guy and Ian Hendrickson-Smith. There was a record called versions that he put out and we were working on that record pretty heavily with him. And then he got the Amy Winehouse record and said “I’m working with this singer – you think The Dap-Kings would want to be the backing band?”

We hadn’t really done much of that stuff before. We didn’t know who she was at the time, so for us it was almost just like a studio gig. It’s just like, here’s the songs, and we worked it out. It was different than making Sharon records which were really our heart and soul.

In some ways there’s a good thing about that, because you’re not precious, you just make these songs. Butit was still The Dap-Kings and we did it exactly how we do Dap-Kings records. It was probably the first record in many years that had one mic on three horns or only a couple of mics on the drums. And I think that was part of the success of that album.

She obviously wrote these beautiful songs, but Mark had a good idea of bringing this band that played so much together and brought a certain flavor to that record. I’m real proud of it. It obviously did very well. And I think that her songs were super unique and really amazing. But I also do think that we brought something to that record and that she knew that and really appreciated it. Right after the album came out and she did the US tour, The Dap-Kings were backing her and she was always super nice and super grateful, and she would take us out for fancy dinners all the time. And then even when we would come to play in London with Sharon, she would always come and talk about how she wanted to do more records with us, which obviously never happened.

So that was kind of sad. Even at the very end, when she was struggling, we were playing in London somewhere and she wanted the whole band to come back to her house. She was aware that we were an important part of that record, but also that we’re good at communicating her music and I think she would have liked to have done more with us.

Are you working on a fifth album for the Sugarman 3? Or something else?

So we’re not working on a fifth album. But Adam Scone – he’s an organ player – and I, we just finished a record very similar to The Sugarman 3 and I play on his music and then he plays on my music.

Since I’m now living here in Europe, we’re going to start touring again. We’re doing the first tour in France this November. It’s probably the first tour The Sugarman 3 have done in 20 years. It’s crazy. So that’s actually really fun. And then we’ll see. I’m looking forward to it and hopefully we’ll play some original music and maybe we’ll follow up with a recording. It’ll be fun because since The Dap-Kings, I’ve been playing just on my own.

Lately I’ve been really into playing saxophone, so kind of getting back into it. Even though I’ve run the record label. I still like being a musician – it’s the most important part of what I do.

Why did you move to Zurich?

I moved to Zurich in 2017, not long after Sharon died. My wife is from Switzerland and we were living in New York City with two small children for years and I was on the road a lot. So it was very hard for her and she wanted to be close to her family. And once Sharon passed away, I had this little crisis. Like, what am I going to do? Obviously, I was running the record label, which was great. But the idea that I would just be going to an office every day and not going on the road? It was a good time for us to just try something different and then Trump had just been elected, too. And Charles just passed away. So it was just a good time for me. I needed a change. So I came over here and then we were here. And when COVID hit, we were much better off here than in New York. So in some ways, that was a really good move for us, especially with kids. New York City was a mess during COVID. And younger teenagers, they’re still suffering from those two years of no school.

That said, I think I’m ready to move back to the US but it was a good change and my wife is happy and playing music here is fun. I just produced a record in Spain by The Excitements from Barcelona. I’ve been traveling, helping people make records here, trying to shed a little light of what we were doing in Brooklyn to some of the European musicians I’ve met.

Are you still involved in Daptone Records from here?

I am still heavily involved in Daptone records. I mean the record label, strangely enough, is doing better than it’s ever done before. And we have a small staff and I work remotely like so many people do now, including my staff. We’re now recording most of the records in California, where Gabe is from. It took a while after Sharon passed away to figure out what our next move is. But then we opened the studio in Riverside, CA and we started recording the bands like Thee Sacred Souls and The Altons. Recently we signed a singer named Jalen Ngonda who’s doing very well and we’re putting out a record by The Altons. And then, of course, just all the regular stuff that we’ve been doing with everyone else, like Orquesta Akokán.

Especially Thee Sacred Souls really took off for us and it rejuvenated the label. And we’re really excited about this. It’s a little different than it was when we started because basically me and Gabe played on every record. Now as we’re older, it’s kind of nice to help these young bands and share some of our experience. As a record label, because we’re musicians, we do really fair deals with these artists and everyone seems to be happy.

And having this catalog of music that people still listen to – in the streaming world you need that. It’s like a long tail theory. If you have several titles, then you’re making more income because people are streaming. If you have ten songs, you’re only making money on ten songs. If you have 1000 songs, you’re making money on 1000.

So as we evolve we’re putting out more good records that people want to listen to. When I go back and listen to the catalog, I’m really proud of it. We’re still working the back catalog and then have some exciting new artists. We have the Altons record coming out in a couple of months. It’s a really, really beautiful record. The second Sacred Souls records is coming out. Jalen’s gonna get back in the studio. So things are going great.

Sacred Souls are going back on tour again to promote the new record. They’re great and I’d like to feel that we were responsible for helping them get to where they are, not only on the business side, but Gabe producing those records and helping them when they were just starting out to figure out what their sound is and the records sound beautiful, too. And the same thing with Jalen. We use our experience of making records to help him make great records, too.

It’s kind of amazing for us, incredible, for Gabe and I owning the small business we’ve had. In the music industry, you deal with a lot of people and people come and go. But we’ve had the same people work for us for almost 20 years.

How did Wick Records come into the Daptone Family (since it’s Garage rock, not R&B)?

Wick Records is something that we started a while ago now and I guess it was especially Mikey Post and myself – when I was a kid I loved sixties garage records.

It’s not that different in a way, if it’s soulful music. I grew up in Boston and there was a really good scene and my brother played in garage bands. For me as a musician, growing up and playing in bands in the 80s and the whole punk scene and the garage scene in the 60s – it was all very DYI. We were always talking about it and then when we heard The Mystery Lights – that was the first Wick record, and then The Ar-Kaics…

We’re not doing tons and it’s a lot more tricky than soul records to make money doing it, but we really like it and it’s not so much pressure. It’s just a labor of love. We have the Benny Trokan record which just came out on Wick and there is a new Mystery Lights record which is long overdue. It’s cool to try to do the same thing that we did with 60s soul. And yeah, the Michael Rault records – it’s cool again. It’s a lot harder to work in that genre of music, but it’s fun.

Do you follow R&B artists on other labels? Any recommendations / personal favourites?

When Gabe started Desco records and I was starting The Sugarman 3, there were very few people doing this kind of retro sounding records.

And since we started playing and people were looking, it’s the most fun music to play. So right out of the gate, there were always going to be other people doing it. And we have made it even an effort to try to help as many of these. Labels like Timmion Records – we’re very close with them and we were always trying to help them with distribution in the US and support their releases and of course Big Crown Records – that was Leon Michels‘ label. And then also Colemine Records – we’re really good friends with Terry [Cole] and we communicate all the time and they’ve done a great job with artists like Durand Jones.

It benefits all of us if there’s a scene. If people are doing it in a vacuum and not paying attention… It’s always been the same way, whether it’s Stax or Motown. It helps all of our records if we’re cooperating. Terry has a record store and he orders tons of Daptone stuff. And if we have records he’s putting out, then we sell them from our website. So yeah, it’s important that we all support each other.