Next up: In The Rain - Dramatics (hit #1 on March 25, 1971 four weeks) Now, I was never a huge fan of this song, but I don't hate it, either. It sounds like a direct copy of "I Wish It Would Rain" by The Temptations. The Dramatics are from Detroit, but never knew they figured into the Detroit riots and the police brutality and murders at the Algiers Motel Killings until I saw the movie "Detroit" last month. So, anyway, the Dramatics have always been one of my favorite groups. Who wouldn't like their hit "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get"?
I haven't been in here in some time, James Brown clearly was still a dominant force on the R&B charts but I'm just not too familiar with his music. I should take time to listen though. Onto 'In The Rain', I like it, and so did the public as it hit #1 R&B and was also a top 5, million selling smash on the pop charts. Keith Sweat, one of my all time favorite singers did a beautiful cover to this song on his album 'Make It Last Forever', Xscape do one as well (according to Wiki though I've never heard theirs)
BTW I popped in at just the right time because for 1972 what made the top of the charts on R&B smokes what was hitting #1 on pop (though there are many crossovers). The next couple of songs are literally all like 10/10, can't wait!!!
Arthur Prysock had a minor soul hit in 1973 with his version, which I think I slightly prefer to the Dramatics!
Yeah, who wouldn't like "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" or "In The Rain"? Especially the lead vocals of "Wee Gee" Howard. As for this, #5 pop ain't shabby. And was certifiably their biggest hit, no question about it. And should have been. It is also notable in that it was the first soul #1 single from within Stax/Volt to be mastered in-house, at Stax Studios by Larry Nix (up to late 1971 they used Mastercraft for the lacquer mastering). As for the opening thunder, it seems to have evoked another similar themed song - "Raindrops" by Dee Clark, from 1961.
Man, I love The Dramatics. I still can't believe "In The Rain" is the only time they hit the top. "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" had some strong competition the previous Summer, or it might have got past #3. Top-notch vocals as usual, with a noticeable doo-wop influence on the back-up. The drum part is intriguing, and really adds to the track. Those low rolls and rumbles are no doubt meant to invoke thunder. Along with the real thing, that is. And of course there's those far-out guitar interjections providing the lightning. She's still gonna know you've been crying, man.
I didn't really hear "In The Rain" until I got it on CD on the early 90s. But, I was familiar with all of their other hits. I also like their second single from the "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" album, the opener called "Get Up and Get Down", which is just a cool groove to get the album started.
That’s Dennis Coffey on guitar on In The Rain. He used an Echoplex unit to get his cracking lightning guitar figure to blend with the raindrops and thunder: Most associate Dennis as a session guitarist on Motown and Invictus/Hot Wax tracks of the time but he was also the guitarist on the Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get sessions for The Dramatics. He played the low guitar figure on the LP’s title track (heard starting at about 0:37 in the video below) using a Condor unit on a harpsichord and bass setting: In The Rain was the fourth number one R&B song that Dennis played on in the span of one year [Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me), Want Ads (although Dennis is not playing the clanging guitar riffs; that’s another famous session guitarist, Ray Parker Jr.), and Stick-Up were the others]. During this period, Dennis’s work was also heard on Top Ten R&B and pop hits like the aforementioned Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get, Smiling Faces Sometimes by The Undisputed Truth (another instance where Dennis plays the guitar solo through the Condor unit;Smiling Faces Sometimes ), and Scorpio (with his own Detroit Guitar Band;Scorpio - Dennis Coffey & The Detroit Guitar Band ). An amazing run!
I never knew that was Dennis on "In the Rain"! Too cool. Had to check what label his own hits were on - he was over on Sussex with Bill Withers and Sugar Man.
Re. the ending part of that post: The whole theme of "In The Rain" seems to me to be a more refined version of a recurring Benny Hill gag: "Please don't blame the doggie / It's not his fault at all / Someone left a wet umbrella / Standing in the hall." As for "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get," the way to go on that is the mono mix - whose intro. did not have the overdubbed strings present on the stereo mix. That mono mix was the one heard on their Soul Train performance of this. The part-recording of these classics in Detroit is another example of how the "sound" of Stax/Volt had changed from the days when they were distributed by Atlantic . . .
It was also around this time that the itinerary of pressing plants handling Stax/Volt changed to a degree. Specialty Records Corp. (which had pressed for Stax as early as 1966 and Volt after 1967) bowed out by the end of '71. They still had Plastic Products and Monarch handling them, but as 1972 dawned 45 product was also being pressed by Monarch's sister plants (all owned by Viewlex), Sonic Recording Products of Holbrook, NY and American Record Pressing (ARP) of Owosso, MI (the ones with the uber-cluttered label typesetting layouts and, depending on which side, justified left or right text on the respective sides). (Don't know if any LP's were pressed by Allentown Record Co., another Viewlex-owned plant.) Columbia had pressed LP's and 45's for Stax/Volt to spring 1971, but wouldn't come back to the pressing fold - and even then, for 45's only - until after Stax signed on to their ultimately disastrous distribution deal with CBS Records. But it was this lineup that pressed copies of this and other big Stax/Volt hits of '72.
Next: Day Dreaming - Aretha Franklin April 22, 1972, Two weeks One of my favorite Aretha songs, and one of the most beautiful ones she ever recorded. For some reason, I thought this came out in 1973, but, whatever. I like it.
A wonderful Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin production, from Young, Gifted and Black. I like this one, and it certainly fits into the softer mood of '72, smoothly blending on the radio with cuts like "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". Probably doesn't hurt that Mr. Hathaway is playing the electric piano on this one. I like this one but don't love it, and have no memory of it from the time.
Your point about this being one of Ms. Franklin's most beautiful, I can't argue. That, however, is the LP version; here is the edited 45 version, with a different ending; alas, those who put this up, do so either with a mono/stereo promo, or with the B side, a cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Here's one of the latter: There were two label variances from Specialty Records Corp (SP) alone, one with Varityper fonts, the other with IBM Selectric Composer type. To wit: (This version has 6 point IBM Selectric Composer Classified News Bold and 11 point Univers Bold.) (This has Specialty's usual Varityper fonts, 6 and 12 point Univers Bold.)
Well, there yuh go, as McCloud would say . . . But this was the point where Ms. Franklin was recording in Miami. Can't exactly put my finger on it, but aside from the changes in the business since she first joined the label and the increasing involvement of Arif Mardin, there seems to be a different vibe to the sides she cut in Florida from those she made in New York.
Agree with that. But some of that could just be the changing times. For a generation there it seemed like every decade had a particular city or pair of cities - apart from the usual Manhattan and LA, anyhow - that got inexplicably hot. In the '60s they were Detroit and London. In the '70s Miami and Philly caught fire. I suppose the '80s saw the rise of Manchester and Minneapolis. In the '90s it was Seattle. I don't know if there's been a city since then that's been quite so unusually dominant in the sound of a decade. Maybe globalization has finally put an end to the kind of regional differences that could spark movements like that. Or maybe the collapse in sales - and in local music scenes - makes it impossible for any town's particular sound to take off quite that way.
One thing to keep in mind though - even if Atlantic's stuff was recorded in Memphis (Dusty In Memphis) or Miami (Young Gifted And Black), it was often mixed (and overdubbed) in Manhattan. In fact, Dusty had refused to cut any vocals in Memphis - she felt too intimidated - and did all her vocal tracks in Manhattan. So to some degree I wonder what impact the town an Atlantic record was supposedly cut in really had on the sound of that record...
