Listen: (1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days / Inez & Charlie Foxx InezCountTheDays.mp3

Not the first time I’ve posted about this unbeatable sister/brother duo, but it is the first time I’ve posted a song for a second time. Got a load of stories about Inez & Charlie Foxx elsewhere on the blog, but on this occasion, I’m just finding a half baked excuse to also let you have a look at the below tip sheet ad in the March 3, 1968 issue of Billboard:

This single still sounds as good as the day it was released. There isn’t one person I’ve played it to, upon hearing it for the first time, that has not loved ‘(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days’. Not ever. Not one.

As much as I cherish this trade ad, it’s a reminder of how pissed off I still am, all these years later, that it didn’t get over that payola airplay hump and go all the way. If ever a single deserved to be huge, this was it.

Listen: (1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days / Inez & Charlie Foxx
(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days / Inez & Charlie Foxx

There’s not a person I play this to who doesn’t, after one spin, decide they need a copy.

I was always extremely partial to this poor man’s Ike & Tina Turner, as I’d seen them referred to. Inez & Charlie Foxx had their biggest love in the UK, like so many before and after would too. But seeing them perform on Cleveland’s UPBEAT show in the 60′s confirmed my loyalty. UPBEAT was a weekly music program, with a good six to ten acts miming their latest releases on every episode. I guess the local network cornered all of them as they passed through Cleveland, happy to get any TV exposure. It was syndicated to various cities in the US, including Syracuse hence I got to see it every Sunday.

There’s a website for the show, and it is particularly boring to navigate – I believe the producer’s son deals with the estate, and basically highlights only the name acts, when the true interest in the show would be the many obscure ones that were on. Hopefully that footage was preserved and will be freed up. There is definitely a goldmine there.

So it was May of ’67 when I saw Inez & Charlie on that very show. We had recently upgraded to a family color TV, so everything was a technicolor dream come true. No bigger one than Inez Foxx in a skin tight floor length carnation pink dress playing a matching pink Stratocaster; and brother Charlie off behind her to the left singing and dancing on a very small riser perfectly clad in a matching pink chino suit, black shirt and pink tie. Talk about having your visual together. And ‘(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days’ was the song they performed. Produced and written by Charlie Foxx and Swamp Dogg, Gene Pitney covered it a year or so later. As great a singer as he definitely was, it was no match for Inez Foxx’s delivery. Along with Inez & Charlie Foxx’s ‘Come By Here’, ‘Tightrope’ and ‘Hurt By Love’, it’s a life long favorite.

Listen: (I Love You Babe But) Give Me My Freedom / The Glories GloriesFreedom.mp3

Like a lot of people, I have a soft spot for anything on Date, and Direction for that matter. They were sister US/UK companies and had great A&R. I wish I knew more about The Glories, but really don’t. Most of their stuff is in the Northern groove, so I’m in.

Listen: Try A Little Tenderness / The Glories GloriesTenderness.mp3

Obviously not a Northern ‘stomper’ as they like to say, but I love any version of ‘Try A Little Tenderness’. Luckily, everyone I know that recorded it had pipes, although Nico or The Flying Lizards would have made interesting listens.

Listen: Sing Me A Love Song / The Glories GloriesSing.mp3

There’s a beautiful trade ad from a ’67 issue of Billboard for this one. Full page. Awesome shot of the girls. Wish my scanner could have handled it’s size. Spun ‘Sing Me A Love Song’ at the Otis Clay show recently – sounded killer through the big speakers