What's Up Front That Counts

Photographer: Joel Brodsky.
Arranger: The Counts.
Shortchanged by Westbound records in favor of the Ohio Players and Funkadelic, the Counts were a good band that didn't hang around long enough to sniff gold. "Rhythm Changes" dropped as a single while this LP, their first, incubated. The credit read "the Fabulous Counts," but by time the album emerged, they were simply the Counts. "Thinking Single" was the first 45 from the completed album, but "What's Up Front," a studio monster comprising eight minutes of stoner funk; the staccato-ish "Rock of Lies"; and "What's It All About," a lurching beat-ballad, were better choices. Style-wise, the Counts exhibited shades of the Ohio Players but were nowhere near as identifiable. Like the Barkays, but to a much greater degree, the Counts didn't have a definitive style. But that hardly kept them from jamming their butts off, as they do on this disk. ~ Andrew Hamilton