Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings mark the Billboard Top 20 debut of their new album I Learned the Hard Way with a bad ass video for the title track.

Video: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – “I Learned the Hard Way”

First week sales for the album totaled 22,689, putting I Learned the Hard Way at #15 on the Billboard Top 200 this week. This marks the band’s highest chart position yet, despite (or maybe because of) a low sales week.

A blurb about the album’s production and the band’s attention to vintage detail after the jump…

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

From a Daptone Records release:

I Learned The Hard Way was produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios. This record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax. Sharon’s raw power, rhythmic swagger, moaning soulfulness, and melodic command set her firmly alongside Tina Turner, James Brown, Mavis Staples, and Aretha as a fixture in the canon of soul music. From the lush Philly-Soul fanfare that ushers in “The Game Gets Old” at the top of the record, to the stripped down Sam Cooke-style “Mama Don’t Like My Man” at the tail, the Dap-Kings dance seamlessly through both the most crafted and simple arrangements with subtlety and discipline. I Learned The Hard Way is the “Daptone Sound” at its finest.