Ann Peebles: I Can't Stand the Rain [FAT POSSUM]

Why you'll love it

This Fat Possum reissue of the Hi Records original comes with a download. The title song reached No. 6 on the R&B chart and No. 38 on the Hot 100, and the album became Peebles' highest-charting LP.

This edition

• Download card included

About the album

Hi Records in Memphis made some of the smoothest soul of the 70s, and Ann Peebles was one of its finest voices. She wrote most of this, her fourth album, with her husband Don Bryant, and the title song, co-written with Bernie Miller, became her calling card.

Willie Mitchell produced it with the Hi Rhythm Section in full flow: Teenie, Charles and Leroy Hodges on guitar, organ and bass, Howard Grimes on drums, and Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love on horns. Peebles and Bryant wrote most of the record together; "Until You Came Into My Life" and "A Love Vibration" glow, "Do I Need You?" smoulders, and Earl Randle's "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" is a tough, strutting R&B hit. The Memphis Strings add a soft sheen, with Charles Chalmers and Donna and Sandra Rhodes on backing vocals.

Peebles and Bryant were partners in songwriting and in marriage, and it shows in every groove. A record this good about rain is a fine reason to stay in, which in Toronto we'd call most of November.

Also at Kops: more Ann Peebles on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Hi / Fat Possum (cat# FPH1138-1), a reissue of the 1974 album.