• How “I Can’t Stand The Rain” was created

Everytime I hear this I wanna say, “Me I’m supa fly, supa dupa fly” and then I snap back to the original version. 🤣 Missy Elliot introduced a new generation to this song. I was part of that new generation of folks who hadn’t heard the Ann Peebles version yet when she sampled it in her debut solo single “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”. But the story of how the Ann Peebles song came together is really interesting.

Story time: One evening in Memphis in 1973, soul singer Ann Peebles was meeting friends, including her partner, Hi Records staff writer Don Bryant, to go to a concert. Just as they were about to set off, the heavens opened and Peebles snapped: “I can’t stand the rain.” As a professional songwriter in constant need of new material, Bryant was used to plucking resonant phrases out of the air and he liked the idea of reacting against recent R&B hits that celebrated bad weather, such as the Dramatics’ “In the Rain” and Love Unlimited’s “Walkin’ in the Rain with the One I Love”. 

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Ann Peebles I Cant Stand The Rain Cover

I Can’t Stand The Rain

Ann Peebles

Album: I Can’t Stand The Rain

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So he sat down at the piano and started riffing on the theme, weaving in ideas from Peebles and local DJ Bernie Miller. The song was finished that night and presented the next morning to Hi’s studio maestro, Willie Mitchell, who used a brand new gadget, the electric timbale, to create the song’s distinctive raindrop riff. It really was that easy. “We didn’t go to the concert,” Bryant remembers. “We forgot about the concert.” Do yourself a favor and listen to “I Can’t Stand The Rain” song today. 

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