Ann Peebles

Ann Peebles (born April 27, 1947, St. Louis, Missouri, United States) is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter best known for her 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 start in the Memphis music industry. Peebles soon began penning and singing hits for the label, co-writing 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 consisted of re-recordings of some of her songs in an acoustic style.

Peebles has been sampled by many hip hop artists, in particular RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan. Furthermore her track «I Can’t Stand The Rain» was first covered by Patrice Banks of Graham Central Station on the 1975 release of «Ain’t No ‘Bout A Doubt It» album and has also been utilized as a sample by the hip hop duo Reflection Eternal (a collaborative group comprised of conscious hip hop artist Talib Kweli, and producer Hi-Tek) for their song «Memories Live» on their debut album Train Of Thought. In 1997, Missy 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.

Ann Peebles is from a small municipality in St Louis County call Kinloch.