With drought conditions officially declared severe in California, even after January’s downpour, you won’t ever hear this Californian say she literally can’t stand the rain. Growing up in the Golden State, we learn all about the century’s old water wars, and though I don’t fully understand the conflict (beyond that the South is dry and the water comes from the North), I know it’s partly why upstate has zero tolerance for weather complaints from the folks down below. And yet, “I Can’t Stand the Rain”, the 1973 hit single by Ann Peebles, is the song that haunted me during January’s deluge. Meteorological report aside, it wasn’t so much all the wet that got me going on my “I Can’t Stand the Rain” trip as it was the plink-plink-plunk-plunk of the rain against my window, bringing thoughts of days gone by—days when it used to rain more often.

Hey window pane,
Do you remember
How sweet it used to be?

I’ve always loved records—the single kind—but my Hi Records 45 of Peebles Top 40/Top 10 R&B hit is one that I especially cherish and it shows: Its condition is still what collectors would classify as vg (very good), which is amazing since it was one I dropped the needle to over and over again. And in the moments I wasn’t actually playing the record, I was waiting for it to come on the radio—The Big 6-10, KFRC. Of course, at the time, there was no way I could relate to the song’s scenario between a man who’s gone and a woman alone, left only with sense memories of the end of an affair, touched off by pouring rain against the window.

I know you got some sweet memories,
But like the window,
You ain’t got nothin’ to say.

It was the companionship the record provided that I dug, the way it conjured the feeling of talking to the walls—or in this case, the windows—in lieu of anyone listening. Emotion is a defining feature of soul music—soul music of all genres—and Peebles’ particular brand of soul was Memphis. A deep groove that calls on the area’s country and blues roots, as well as the smarts of jazz, Memphis soul was pioneered at Stax Records and moved on to studios like American Sound, FAME, and Muscle Shoals, where Southerners like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, along with Northern and foreign interlopers, like Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield, all cut “Memphis soul” records. But in the 1970s, Memphis soul belonged to Willie Mitchell and Royal Studios, home of the hits for the Hi label, beginning with the two singles by Peebles in 1969: “Walk Away” and “Part Time Love.”

Hailing from East St. Louis, Peebles was a born singer, belonging to a family gospel choir. On a visit to nearby Memphis, she was not yet 21 when she was discovered by trumpeter Gene “Bowlegs” Miller, who shuttled her into the studio to meet Mitchell. A former bandleader and recording artist himself, Mitchell was on the verge of discovering Al Green, a collaboration that would put the two men into the hall of rock ‘n’ soul legends, as they finessed Green’s records using Hi’s characteristic sound—laidback but with a constant forward push. The pair enjoyed a long collaboration that lasted Mitchell’s lifetime, but Peebles was his first triumph following his promotion to vice president and managing partner of the label. Together they made two charting albums and what became an early signature tune, “99 Lbs.” Performing a combination of self-penned numbers, collaborations, and covers, Peebles was writing with Don Bryant, once a singer for Mitchell’s band turned songwriter for Hi; he and she would soon marry. One night, under Memphis skies during a torrential downpour, they along with DJ Bernard Miller, came up with “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” “It was, like, we were all at Ann’s getting ready to go out to a show,” explains Bryant. “We weren’t able to go out there and Ann said, ‘I can’t stand this rain…’ I thought, ‘That’s a good thing for a song.’ We sat down at the piano, we just started singing, everybody started coming up with lines and what have you. Before that night was over, we’d come up with a song.”

When it came time for recording, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” was infused with the juice that would further define Memphis soul in the ’70s: Mitchell employed Hi Rhythm, the band featuring the Hodges brothers, Teenie on guitar, Charles on organ, LeRoy on bass, and drummer Al Jackson Jr. (who segued from success with Booker T and the MGs at Stax in the ’60s to Hi in the ’70s). Charles’ eerie organ jabs are a defining feature of the track, as it was on many of Hi’s records; the Memphis Horns arrangement is essential to carrying the harmony melody, as well as the song’s middle. But it’s Peebles’ voice, smooth but with a slight catch and vibrato to it, that is ultimately the star of the show. The grooves Mitchell put down with both sections and the Hi soul singers at Royal—whether Peebles, Green, O.V. Wright, Syl Johnson, or Otis Clay—would become recognizable all over the world.

A widely accepted part of “I Can’t Stand the Rain”’s lore is that, at one time, John Lennon called it a favorite. Short of finding the origin of the actual quote, I came upon another connection between Lennon and Peebles, as reported by LA Times critic Robert Hilburn. On assignment to review Peebles’ gig at the Troubadour in 1973, the reporter ran into Lennon who was on his way to being 86′d that night for wearing a sanitary napkin on his head—an admittedly unusual way to express appreciation for the singer whose song he was said to love.

Mercifully, Peebles had other, better-behaved singing fans. Through the years, her song has been performed in rockin’ renditions by Steve Marriott and Ron Wood; Graham Central Station funkified it and US one-hit wonders Eruption discofied it. Lowell George kept the soul in it, while arguably the world’s greatest female rock ‘n’ soul singer, Tina Turner, managed to strip the soul out of it when it was released as the sixth single from her 1984 comeback album Private Dancer. Peebles made her own comeback in 1989, collaborating with Mitchell for the album Call Me. The song continued to be sung—pop/soul style by Seal, and in jazz form by Cassandra Wilson. Perhaps most significantly, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” served as a launch pad for the recording and production careers of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott and Timbaland—the plink-plink-plunk-plunk effect of the Peebles original holding steady throughout “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” Like Mitchell, Elliott and Timbaland are studio giants, credited with retooling R&B and hip-hop sound for the 21st century.

By the end of the ’70s, Hi had been sold; changing styles, and as the story goes, the popularity of old-school soul getting edged out by disco at about the same time Hi’s biggest star, Al Green, left the soul music business for another kind of soul-based vocation. The Hi Rhythm Section, however, continued to work as a unit. Most recently, Teenie and Leroy accompanied Chan Marshall on the Cat Power album The Greatest.  Mitchell kept Royal going, where he presided over projects from Rod Stewart to Solomon Burke ’til his death at age 81 in January of this year. Peebles, had an immediate-post “Rain” hit with “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down”, a soul standard, particularly in the UK, where it was revived by both Graham Parker and Paul Young. She continues to record and perform, having left her watermark on pop, soul, and rain songs, as well as on me, for all time.

Though Albert Hammond (the Senior) had a hit in 1972 with “It Never Rains in Southern California”, the mysteries of Southern California and its rainfall patterns were of less interest to me then they are now. And yet, the mysteries of Memphis soul (and “I Can’t Stand the Rain) continued to reveal themselves. Having collected all the right 45s, I eventually got a job as a DJ, specializing in soul. By 2006, I finally saw the Hodges play in Memphis. And still, memories of “I Can ‘t Stand the Rain” keep haunting me, specifically one birthday party sleepover at which I played serious DJ for the other little girls. Acting as if they should care as much as I did about “I Can’t Stand the Rain”, of course, they didn’t. Though when they weren’t moved like I was moved, it affirmed my resolve that people need to be shown to good music. People need to be shown; I’ll show them. “You know what’s weird?” asks the narrator, Stew, at the end of his coming of age play Passing Strange. “When you wake up and realize your entire adult life was based on a decision made by a teenager.” Is it any wonder “I Can’t Stand the Rain” still puts the hurt on me?

Listen: Ann Peebles, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” [at youtube.com]

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