Home Live For Live Music South Carolina Town Passes Measure To Name New Amphitheater After Sharon Jones

South Carolina Town Passes Measure To Name New Amphitheater After Sharon Jones

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On Monday night, the North Augusta, SC council voted unanimously to name a new amphitheater in the Riverside Village area of the city after local music icon Sharon Jones.

The newly-christened Sharon Jones Amphitheater, which sits along the bank of the Savannah River and can hold roughly 600 people, had its official ribbon-cutting ceremony back in June, when it was still being tentatively called the Amphitheater at Riverside Village. You can check out some photos of the newly-christened Sharon Jones Amphitheater here.

Sharon Jones, the late soul queen best known for her work as the frontwoman of the Dap-Kings, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer four years ago this month. Jones was born in Augusta, GA but lived across the river in North Augusta, SC. Per the Augusta Chronicle, “The Greater North Augusta Chamber of Commerce said she was baptized at North Augusta Baptist Church and had her first singing role as an angel in a Christmas play before moving to New York with her mother at age 3.”

Members of Jones’ family attended the council hearing, which resulted in a 6-0 vote in favor of the amphitheater’s naming (Resolution 2020-52). “She would be flabbergasted right now,” Jones’ sister Willia Stringer said. “We didn’t live far from there. My father used to walk down with us down to the river. Back then, there was nothing there but trees and the river.”

Related: Listen To The Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Song Her Gospel Choir Posthumously Completed

Though she began to attain success later in her life and maintained a busy touring schedule, Sharon Jones continued to spend off time in North Augusta with her family. Late in her life, she purchased a home there for her mother. Though she never attained the mainstream fame her talent seemed destined to invite, she developed a dedicated cult following and a 2014 Grammy nomination for her album, Give The People What They Want, and among other honors, was the subject of the acclaimed 2015 documentary Miss Sharon Jones!

As Rolling Stone notes, the idea for renaming the venue was started by Augusta Chronicle columnist and veteran journalist Don Rhodes, a friend of Jones’. Via his own column and various conversations with North Augusta mayor Robert Pettit, who was previously unaware of Jones’s work, the suggestion gradually became a reality. As Rhodes explained, “In North Augusta, there’s no public park or building named after a black citizen, and I said it was the right thing to do. And who else should be it named for? There’s nobody else from North Augusta who had that kind of worldwide fame.”

The town is planning a dedication ceremony for the venue in March of 2021 pending COVID restrictions at that time.

North Augusta has never been shy in expressing its admiration for Jones. In 2017, the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce posthumously honored Jones as the city’s “2016 Citizen of the Year,” noting, “In those 60 years she lived a life that only most of us can dream of: jet-setting, performing on stages around the world and starring in movies, but she never forgot her hometown, her beloved North Augusta.”

Last month, Daptone Records released a new collection of rare Sharon Jones covers, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In). Stream or download it here.

[H/T Rolling Stone]

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Source: L4LM.com