Sharon Jones has died, age 60

Sharon Jones, a powerhouse soul singer with a gritty voice, fast feet and indomitable energy, died Friday of pancreatic cancer. She was 60.

Her death was confirmed by Judy Miller Silverman, her publicist. She said Ms. Jones died at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, N.Y., and was surrounded by members of her band, the Dap-Kings, and other loved ones when she died.

Ms. Jones sang and shouted the kind of gospel-charged soul and funk she had grown up on. Her voice had bite, bluesiness, rhythmic savvy and a lifetime of conviction. She was backed by the Dap-Kings, the revivalist New York City R&B band that supplied her songs as she sparked their career.

She was discovered in 1996 by Gabriel Roth, a founder of the Brooklyn-based Daptone Records and the Dap-Kings’ bassist and main songwriter (under the name Bosco Mann). Ms. Jones had tried decades earlier to get a start in the music business, but was told by record labels that she didn’t have the looks to be a performer. Later, she would recall in the 2016 documentary “Miss Sharon Jones!,” the refrain became, “too short, too fat, too black and too old.”

But with the Dap-Kings — who sometimes introduced her as “110 pounds of soul excitement” — she became an unstoppable frontwoman. As she sang about love troubles, hard times and a woman’s strength, she would race across the stage in high heels — and sooner or later kick them off — while shouting and shimmying in fringed, sequined dresses.

Ms. Jones and the Dap-Kings worked their way up from clubs to theaters and festivals, and drew growing recognition from fellow musicians. At a 2011 concert in Paris, Prince showed up to play some guitar. In 2014, after chemotherapy sent her cancer into remission, Ms. Jones returned to performing with a show of undiminished energy as long as she could.

Sharon Lafaye Jones was born on May 4, 1956, in Augusta, Ga., and spent her first years living across the state line in North Augusta, S.C. (Augusta, Ga., also nurtured one of her lifelong influences, James Brown.) She was the youngest of six children, and she is survived by four of them: Dora Jones, Isiah Jones, Henry Jones and Willian Stringer.