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:

[ "No Stranger to Love" ]

[ Reimagine Records — New Hartford, NY ]

Damian Luca

Artist: Damian Luca

LP: Trésors Folkloriques Roumains

Song: "Repezita"

[ listen ]

Here's evidence that Zamfir isn't the only Romanian flautist in the world who knows his way around a pan flute. Instructed by his uncle, the great pan flautist Fănică Luca, Damian mastered the flute and hit the road, performing at the Olympia in Paris, at New York's Carnegie Hall...he was even on The Ed Sullivan Show! My copy of Damian's "Trésors Folkloriques Roumains" LP is autographed by the entire troupe from Lucas' 1978 Pacific Northwest Tour, which lasted from October-December and which I somehow missed. "Repezita," one of the album's exuberant dances (side II - 1), provides a terrific showcase for Lucas' pan flutin' skills—this guy's a real Romaniac! You can read a bit about Damian Luca on the International Swiss Panflute Seminar website here, and LP liner notes in English and French are included below.

 [ Fănică Luca: April 5, 1894 — October 28, 1968 ]