I Can’t Stand The Rain MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES; JACOB BLICKENSTAFF; ZUMAPRESSINC/ALAMYSTOCKPHOTO; PAULMORIGI/WIREIMAGE FORTHERECORDINGACADEMY
byAnnPeebles
Bad weather nixes a night out in Memphis, inspiring the title of a distinctive, much-covered R&B hit. “Thank the Lord for that storm!”
J
OHN Lennon once told Billboard that Ann Peebles’ 1973 R&B hit “I Can’t Stand The Rain” was “the best song ever”. His appreciation didn’t stop there. Peebles was aware she had a diehard fan on her hands when Lennon turned up at her show at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in February
Raining queen: Ann Peebles, October 1974
1974. In the throes of his ‘Lost Weekend’, it transpired that Lennon voiced his approval a little too enthusiastically. “I got up there, looked down and saw John Lennon,” Peebles recalls, laughing. “He’d had a little too much to drink, and he started hollering my name out. He had a sanitary napkin tied over his head and he was screaming, ‘Ann, I love you!’ He was flying! He was just expressing himself, I think. He was really something. I appreciate him saying the song was great. He really loved it.” It’s not so hard to hear what got Lennon all shook up. A perfect 145 seconds of Southern soul, “I Can’t Stand The Rain” is the quintessential sound of Willie Mitchell’s Hi Records school of excellence, housed at the old Royal Movie Theatre in Memphis. Inspired by a chance remark made among friends on a stormy night, the song was written by Peebles and her future husband, Don Bryant, Hi’s in-house songwriter, with help from friend and local DJ Bernard Miller.
KEY PLAYERS
Ann Peebles (vocals, co-writer)
Don Bryant (co-writer)
Howard Grimes (drums and percussion)
Charles Hodges (Hammond organ)
Recorded the following day, its dramatic atmosphere of throbbing heartache and humid heat is teased out by the Hi Rhythm Section and Memphis Horns, the goldstandard team that graced the work of everyone from OV Wright to Al Green. Overdubbing the high, haunting peal of the percussive timbales as a final production flourish, the late Mitchell set the scene with all the precision of a master auteur. “That was what really made the record,” says Don Bryant, still married to Peebles almost 50 years later. “Those ‘raindrop’ sounds on the front of it got your attention. I think that’s what made the song as strong as it was. It was something different and gave it a whole other flavour.” “It was easy for me to record it,” adds Peebles. Though she suffered a stroke in 2012 that curtailed her performing career, speaking on the phone from Memphis – with Bryant by her side – she remains a lively, alert presence. “I knew how I wanted to sing it. When I was writing it, I was thinking about someone who broke up on a rainy, rainy night, and really needs to talk about it. That’s what was in my mind.” Bryant chuckles. “She nailed it, man!” GRAEME THOMSON DON BRYANT (co-writer): I started working with Willie Mitchell when I was coming out of high school. We started playing with him in the Memphis clubs, and it worked out pretty good. My group was breaking up. I told Willie I would like to go solo, so we tried that. CHARLES HODGES (hammond organ): Don was a lead vocalist, he worked with Willie Mitchell for years. He was a fantastic tenor, one of the best I ever heard, but we never could get a big record on him.
