Ann Peebles
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Ann Peebles (born April 27 1947, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter best known for her popular Memphis soul albums of the 1970s on the Hi Records label. Two of her better known songs are "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" and "I Can't Stand the Rain", popularised by cover versions by Paul Young and Eruption respectively.
Peebles was discovered as a talent by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller of Hi Records during a 1968 trip to sit in singing with him at a Memphis, Tennessee, nightclub. A popular local bandleader, Miller was known for also helping other musicians, such as members of the Hi Rhythm Section, get their starts in the Memphis music industry. Peebles soon began penning and singing hits for the label, cowriting with label staff songwriter Don Bryant, whom she later married in 1974. Peebles released a number of commercially successful and critically well received albums produced by Willie Mitchell on Hi Records throughout the 1970s, until the rise of disco music in the late 1970s took her music out of the limelight. Hi Records was sold in 1977, but Peebles reunited with Willie Mitchell in 1989 to produce her comeback album, Call Me.
In 2006 she released the album Brand New Classics which consists of re-recordings of some of her songs in an acoustic style.
Ann Peebles has been sampled by many Hip-Hop artists, in particular RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan. In 1997, artist Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott recorded an interpolation of "I Can't Stand the Rain," entitled The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), as the first single from her debut album Supa Dupa Fly. The single reached the top ten in the US and UK, peaking at number 3 in U.S. Billboard' Hot Dance Singles Sales.
