Let’s Get Wet: “In The Rain”

September 29, 2006 by tgrundy
Filed under: Music, Podcasts, Soul/R&B, radio.blog 

The latest creation from the RIBS kitchen, “In The Rain”, has been posted over on the Rhythms In Black Satin site. You can listen to the radio.blog playlist or, for a real treat, download the .MP3 file, sit back, close your eyes and I swear you’ll actually start to hear rain falling and thunder crashing around you while you drift along on the cloud of music. As I always like to say, “music never felt sooooooooooo good!”

We start off with my absolute favorite track in the entire mix, “Some Days Were Meant For Rain”, by Tower Of Power (however, I really don’t consider it a TOP song; I’ll explain in a minute). Now, you may or may not have ever heard this song before, but it has been a favorite of mine ever since the late 70’s, early 80’s during my college days in Boston. The lead singer (and songwriter) on the tune is a gentleman by the name of Ellis Hall. During my college years in Bean Town he had one of the most popular and dynamic bands in the area called the Ellis Hall Group. I can’t tell you how many hours of pure musical enjoyment my crew and I spent in Jack’s listening to EHG. “Some Days…” was their signature, show stopper tune and, as good as it sounds in recorded format, you just haven’t lived until you’ve heard it LIVE with Ellis crooning his poor broken heart out and background vocalist Patti Unitas pouring salt in the wound singing, “My love for you was just a game in time!”. Oh, baby! I get chills even now thinking about those performances.

As you can see by visiting the Ellis Hall website, Ellis has done quite well for himself since those early days of in MA. And, to my great delight, he was finally able to record “Some Days…” when he spent time as keyboardist and lead vocalist with TOP.

Now, no soul mix about “rain” songs would be complete (nor even contemplated) without including The Temptations’ all-time classic, “I Wish It Would Rain”. From the very beginning when you hear, “Sunshine, blue skies please go away”, well, I don’t really need to say anymore, do I?

Now is where it started to get hard. Continuing with the rain/broken heart theme I originally was going to slide Graham Central Station’s version of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” into slot 3, until a conversation I had with my musical mentor, Lady Viva The High Mistress of Music, convinced me that Tina Turner’s version was far superior. And, of course she was right on.

And then there was the blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan and “The Sky Is Crying”. This is my second favorite cut in the mix. The song lyrics, Stevie’s vocals, the wailing guitar in response to his lament. You can’t help but feel the rain tormenting his soul.

Another song I just could not leave out of the mix is “Riders On The Storm” by The Doors. This version is a nice, slightly jazzy rendition of this moody, melodic classic. And speaking of moody rain music, it doesn’t get any better than Brook Benton and “Rainy Night In Georgia”.

“I wanna go outside, in the rain. It may sound crazy, but I wanna go outside, in the rain.” The Dramatics. “In The Rain”. This was actually the first song I thought of when starting the mix. Beautiful. Poignant. Timeless. Especially the plea near the end, “I got to walk out the door, I can’t stand it no more!”

Santana’s “Stormy” gives us a mid-tempo change of pace from all of the broken hearted doom and gloom of the first half of the mix. However, even though his girl is the sunshine whenever she smiles, like the weather she can change.

With “Can You Stand The Rain?” I couldn’t decide between the Boyz II Men version and the New Edition version since I like them both. Fortunately, the former is ‘a cappella’ and they work well together back-to-back. Almost followed that with Peabo Bryson’s “Can You Stop The Rain?” until I found Grover’s instrumental version. Nothing like a little good “sax” when your heart is broken, eh?

The next two songs, Ashanti’s “Rain On Me” and Jamie Foxx’s “Storm (Forecass)” are totally new to me, I had not heard them before I started researching the mix. The Ashanti song samples Issac Hayes’ “The Look Of Love” and I immediately fell in love with it for that reason, while I just like the imagery and concept of Jamie’s tune. If you haven’t heard it before, listen very closely to the lyrics. Now, that’s a rain storm!

Love Unlimited’s “Walking In The Rain (With The One I Love)” is another soul rain classic that IMO had to be included in the mix, proving not all rain songs are the result of a broken heart.

Carpenters. Richard, Karen and “Rainy Days and Mondays”. I worked hard to try to fit this one in as it has always been a favorite of mine (hey, before I got soul I grew up on Top 40 radio! {smile}) and to me the mix wouldn’t have felt right without it.

Finally, we finish out with “Black Rain” by Teena Marie and “Quiet Storm” by the man himself Smokey Robinson. Teena’s cut is another relatively new rain song I just discovered while making the mix. This one has that sad, bluesy, jazz feel to it. I always imagine myself sitting in a smoky jazz club on a rainy day in the Village in New York City sipping on a Scotch on the rocks when I hear this. As for Smokey and Quiet Storm, well, I couldn’t think of a better way to close out the mix.

So sit back, relax and let the (musical) rain wash all over you.

Tags:

Comments

4 Comments on Let’s Get Wet: “In The Rain”

  1. Kevin on Sat, 30th Sep 2006 7:35 am

    2. Damn, man. The Ellis Hall Group? We were in the same place same time apparently. I’ve seen them many times back in the day. I used to work in the ONLY music store in Harvard Square (beside the used record shops that is) and worked for a distributorship at the same time.

    I saw tons of Boston music at the Rat, Jonathan Swifts, the channel, the paradise, …. shit, you name it, I was there.

    Fantastic mix and one that I’m taking on the road today. Great work!

    Kevin

  2. Roddykat on Mon, 2nd Oct 2006 7:42 am

    3. Ahh, great mix. I did enjoy the Tina Turner “I can’t stand the rain”. I’m still a bit more partial to the Ann Peebles, but I loved it. I can safely say that this mix came in quite handy at the time I played it(though there was no actual rain).

    By the way, I’m sure you have this one but, “You can’t stop the rain” by Loose Ends. I forgot to mention it last time I posted.

  3. tgrundy on Mon, 2nd Oct 2006 8:23 am

    4. @Kevin: Oh man, you’re kidding me! Wow, you were in B-town the same time I was? No wonder we hit it off so well {smile}. Hmmmm… what was the name of that record store in the Square, I’m sure I was in it many, many times. Ha, I wonder if we’ve actually met? Some of my favorite places in that area (besides the ones you mentioned) were 33 Dunster Street and the rotating lounge on top of the Hyatt Regency right there on the river in Cambridge. The most beautiful view of the Boston skyline in the whole city. The Ellis Hall Group just ruled the music scene (IMHO) back in those days. They had a great lineup with that group. One of my best friends, a woman by the name of Lark Logan, used to work at the AM R&B station WILD for a while and then later at KISS. We never missed an EHG show when they were performing.
    @Roddykat: lovin’ the feedback, glad you enjoy the mix. Loose Ends, eh? That’s one I’ve missed. I’ll have to go track that one down for “In The Rain 2″.

  4. The Rain Collection – aderemi’s notebook on Wed, 4th Oct 2006 2:53 pm

    5. [...] RIBS has a nice collection of “Rain” songs featuring oldies like Tempatations to comtemporaries like Jamie Foxx. There is a review of the collection here. “Can You Stand The Rain” by New Edition and recently by Boyz II men, was a favourite of mine for sometime. (Listen now) Tags: Music, Asides In the past: 4 ways to spend money [...]

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!