Photo credit: Finlay MacKay for The New York Times

[Gabriel] Roth is a 34-year-old songwriter, bassist and sound engineer, as well as the somewhat-reluctant co-owner of Daptone Records, a small record label in Brooklyn. He is still a musical outsider: he says he strongly dislikes almost every pop song recorded since 1974, including one or two that bear his own imprint. What appeals to him -- what consumes him -- are dusty soul and funk records from the 1960s and early '70s. By studiously emulating these recordings, he has gained a reputation as a devoted, even obsessive, musical purist...

When he convened [Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings] a decade ago, few people could have anticipated that an outfit of meticulous soul revivalists with an astonishingly energetic, smack-talking, 4-foot-11 middle-aged black woman for a lead singer would become one of the more celebrated indie acts in the country -- or that Roth's continuing passion for the music of James Brown would result in critical adulation, a platinum record and a Grammy Award. But mainstream success, Roth insists, was never the point. "Our goal is simple," he told me. “We want to make the kinds of records we want to hear."

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Visit the Daptone Records label page!