Nov. 19: Sharon Jones, the soul singer and powerful voice of the band the Dap-Kings, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer that had been in remission but returned last year. She was 60.

Jones's death was confirmed by Judy Miller Silverman, her publicist. She said Jones was surrounded by members of the Dap-Kings and other loved ones when she died. She continued performing throughout the summer, even while undergoing chemotherapy that she said caused neuropathy in her feet and legs and restricted her movements onstage. But Jones remained undeterred.

"Getting out on that stage, that's my therapy," Jones said in a New York Times interview published in July. "You have to look at life the way it is. No one knows how long I have. But I have the strength now, and I want to continue."

The summer tour promoted I'm Still Here, a single with the Dap-Kings that detailed Jones's birth in a brutally segregated South, a childhood in the burned-out Bronx, and a career hampered by record executives who considered her "too short, too fat, too black and too old".

Jones was that rare music star who found fame in middle age, when she was in her 40s.

In addition to working as a correction officer at Rikers Island and an armed guard for Wells Fargo, Jones, who had grown up singing gospel in church choirs, initially dabbled in professional music as a session singer and the vocalist in a wedding band, Good N Plenty.

After meeting Gabriel Roth, the producer and songwriter also known as Bosco Mann, Jones made the leap from backup singer to main attraction. Desco Records released her debut 7-inch vinyl single, Damn It's Hot, in 1996. She was 40.

With the encouragement and songwriting of Roth, who co-founded the Brooklyn soul and funk revival label Daptone Records and serves as the bandleader of the Dap-Kings, Jones's full-length debut, Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings," came out in 2002. She would go on to release four more studio albums and two compilations on the small label.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE