Swamp Dogg released “Count The Days” (feat. Jenny Lewis), the second song to be released from his forthcoming album Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St, his first record with Oh Boy Records that will be released on May 31. The exuberant new single which was first released in 1967 by Inez and Charlie Foxx and re-envisioned here, arrives with an official music video featuring Swamp and Lewis recording the track at Nashville’s Sound Emporium.
About the song, Swamp Dogg explains: “I figured, once a hit, always a hit—and this song has been a hit three times with Inez and Charlie Foxx, Joss Stone, and Gene Pitney. After hearing Jenny Lewis’ voice, I knew it was destined to be a hit again.”
Last month, the feature-length documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted premiered at SXSW. Produced by Ryan Olson (Poliça, Gayngs) and recorded with an all-star band including Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas, Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras, and Kenny Vaughan, the 12-song collection is a riotous blend of past and present, mixing the sacred and the profane in typical Swamp Dogg fashion as it blurs the lines between folk, roots, country, blues, and soul.
Special guests like Margo Price, Vernon Reid, Jenny Lewis, Justin Vernon, and The Cactus Blossoms all add to the excitement, but it’s ultimately the 81-year-old Swamp Dogg’s delivery—sly and playful and full of genuine joy and ache—that steals the show. “Believe it or not, I didn’t do anything but sing these songs the way I would have sung them if it was an R&B album. That’s just the way the music comes out of me, and it would have been unholy for me to try and imitate anybody else,” explains Swamp Dogg about the making of the album. “Black music has had so many different labels put on it over the years that sometimes I’m onstage and I don’t know what the hell it is that I’m singing. The only thing I know how to do is be myself.”
