Ann Peebles’ Greatest Hits
My senior year of college Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” came out. It was a new wave of sound in hip-hop, and I found myself singing to it and trying to imitate Missy’s staccato-like dance moves while getting ready for class in the mornings. I loved everything about it, especially the lilting voice above the beats singing, “I can’t stand the rain.”
This was before smart phones, practically at the dawn of the Internet, so I never stopped to think about where that lilting refrain might have come from. Then a few weeks ago, while in a Starbucks of all places, I heard that voice and those words again. But it wasn’t Missy’s song. A very quick Google search led me to Ann Peebles, a soul singer whose career was at its highest in the 1970s.
I quickly ordered her greatest hits and have listened to it nearly non-stop. Now that I have the two songs to compare to each other, you can hear that the main beat in “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” is a grittier reworking of the opening notes from Peebles’ original “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” She, along with her future husband and another producer, wrote the song in 1973. They wanted to echo the sound of rain, and—it’s been noted in several histories of the song—were one of the first songwriters to use the new electric timbale to create the unusual drum sound.* The song was released the next year on an album of the same name by the famed Hi Records label, and it became arguably the most commercially successful single of Peebles' career, spending time on several charts.
Every song on her Greatest Hits album is strong if not so immediately attention-grabbing. Like many female anthems of the day, some of the gender politics can be problematic to modern ears, especially her “I Didn’t Take Your Man.” (See also: “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.) It’s uncomfortable to sing along to songs that place the sole responsibility for the success of a (hetero) relationship on the woman, but they’re still jams.
According to the very informative album notes, Peebles' career ended in 2012 when she suffered a stroke, but she has given interviews since then and made a public appearance in 2014 when she was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
Ann Peebles has quickly joined my personal Holy Trinity of soul and jazz singers—Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone—and I’m looking forward to discovering more songs in her rich backlist.
You can stream Ann Peebles' Greatest Hits on Amazon if you're a Prime Member, and it's available from many other many retailers.
*I highly recommend The Guardian’s ode to and interview with Ann Peebles, which also contains a surprising anecdote concerning John Lennon.
