Saturday, November 5, 2016

Inez & Charlie Foxx

Artist: Inez & Charlie Foxx
LP: Come By Here
Song: "I Stand Accused" / "Guilty"
[ listen ]
Song: "No Stranger to Love"
[ listen ]

Speaking of sexy siblings, check out the Foxxy Inez and her charming brother, Charlie. They first began singing together in a gospel choir in their hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1950s. "Mockingbird," their debut single, went to #7 on the US pop charts in 1963, but nothing they released after that even made the Billboard Pop Top 40—including the wonderful "I Stand Accused," which peaked at #49 on the R&B charts, but failed to register at all on the Hot 100. The fact that the electrifying, soul-stirring, hip-swinging post-"Mockingbird" musical brilliance of Inez & Charlie was met with bored indifference by the American public was one of the earliest indicators of the forthcoming and ever-accelerating downhill spiral in U.S. popular thought, behavior, intelligence, and culture that would eventually reduce us to a level where this despicable person could be considered an exciting option for U.S. President by nearly half of the country's people in 2016. 

When I first stopped by Reimagine Records in the Utica suburb of New Hartford, I found the store closed. But I peeked in the front window and saw some Duran Duran LPs that assured me the place was worth returning to if time allowed. Well time did allow, and I went back the next day. This pristine copy of Inez & Charlie's 1967 "Come By Here" LP is what I'm most excited about having found at RR, but I picked up all sorts of other neat stuff there too. The shop's owners, Scott and Michelle, are friendly and engaging and even managed to turn me onto The Beatles, of all things, since I had largely dismissed them previously—mainly because of all the crying and the fainting and the panties thing, and also because The Beatles' records are always at least twice as expensive any of the other records in a store. But the Ron Howard documentary I'd seen at The Little Theatre in Rochester and my conversation with Scott and Michelle at has got me giving the group some reconsideration. 

Inez & Charlie Foxx on YouTube:

[ Reimagine Records — New Hartford, NY ]

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