Category: 1960s

Here Comes The Rain: Five Songs That Let The Storm Sing

It’s the last month of Winter in the southern hemisphere and I can’t stop thinking about rain. It’s a subject that has inspired countless songs. It is a pretty evocative thing to make music about. So here are five songs that not only mention rain and storms but actually incorporate the sounds of rain.

Stormy Weather – The Five Sharps (Jubilee, 1952)

Highest Chart Position: Didn’t chart

Released in 1952 to dismal sales. Most copies sold to the singers themselves. This track should have been lost to time if it weren’t for an odd twist of fate almost a decade after it was released. Someone lent a copy to a radio DJ in 1961. It got broken in his care and a subsequent search for a replacement showed how rare the copy was.

It’s become legend in record collecting circles since as one of the rarest R&B records. Only a handful of 78s exist and no original 45s. They were recycled after market-testing showed the record was a dud. Then a fire destroyed the masters so no reissues could be made. A cracked copy turned up in 1968 which a sound engineer recorded. Then painstakingly edited out the sound issues from the crack. A 45rpm release came from this copy in 1972.

It’s a sweet but ultimately forgettable doo-wop cover of the jazz standard. The song opens with the sound of a rainstorm which continues throughout the entire track. This sound effect was originally created in the 1930s for the Standard Sound Effects library. If it sounds familiar, it should, it’s the same thunderstorm that appears in a lot of songs. And that’s the thunderclap that accompanies Count von Count’s counting on Sesame Street in the 70s.

There is a re-recorded version by another group of musicians using the same group name. Released in 1964 due to the hype the original was getting. It’s a superior version. But there are no rain effects. Disappointing.

Walking In the Rain – The Ronettes (Philles, 1964)

Highest Chart Position: #23 US (Billboard Hot 100); #10 Australia (Kent Music Report)

The 60s embraced rain intros with a passion! There are a lot. From R&B ballads to psychedelic pop and every genre in between. Most of them use the same sound effect too. So it was hard to pick just one to highlight. I went with a Brill Building pop classic where the rain effects earned sound engineer Larry Levine a Grammy nomination.

It was Levine who suggested the rain backing, going for a literal translation of the lyrics. Using a pre-recorded sound effect, he integrates the rain and uses the thunderclaps to emphasise each verse. Yep, it’s the same rainstorm from The Five Sharps’ song, but used much more successfully.

Walking in the Rain is a big sounding track using Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production technique. Recorded in one take by Ronnie Spector. Backed by The Wrecking Crew as well as a then-unknown Cher as one of the backup singers. It did not crack the US Top 20, much to Spector’s chagrin and would end up heralding the end of the Big Sound era.

Riders on the storm – The Doors (Elektra, 1971)

Highest Chart Position:
#14 US (Billboard Hot 100); #12 Australia (Kent Music Report); #7 Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)

One of the most iconic song to incorporate rain effects. The album version is a cinematic epic of over 7 minutes of dark, brooding poetry punctuated by rain. Eerie but sexy in a way that only Jim Morrison can achieve. It would be the last song that he recorded. He died less than 6 months later while the song was still charting.

The rain and thunder effects were Morrison’s idea. They were then added by The Doors’ engineer, Bruce Botnick, using pre-recorded sound effects discs from Elektra Records. Ray Manzarek’s keyboards emulate the rain sounds further. It’s like rain falling in an abstract way.

The killer on the road is Billy ‘Cockeyed’ Cook who went on a 22-day killing spree in 1950. Hitchhiking murderers were always on Morrison’s mind. In his experimental short film HWY: An American Pastoral he plays Billy, a hitchhiker who confesses to murder.

Is it their best song? Maybe… but it’s definitely their best song with rain sound effects.

The Rain – Oran ‘Juice’ Jones (Def Jam, 1986)

Highest Chart Position:
#9 US (Billboard Hot 100); #85 Australia (Kent Music Report); #5 Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)

Def Jam records first R&B hit which would end up being a one hit wonder. It’s about man who finds out his girl is stepping out on him after he follows her in the rain. It starts off smooth and soulful but then shifts to a spoken-word monologue. The hilariously over the top lyrics include gold such as:

You know my first impulse was to run up on you

and do a Rambo

Synthed to the max, with a vocal hook ear worm that sticks in your brain. The diss epilogue speech. Then there’s the rain. Anyway… it’s an experience.

But in the end this song is mainly on this list so I can direct you to the superb parody video from Saturday Night Live featuring Donald Glover. It is perfection.

Set You Free – N-Trance (All Around The World, 1992)

Highest Chart Position (1995 re-release): #11 Australia (ARIA); #8 Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)

There’s something about that piano coming in over the pouring rain. The high-NRG beat. The air horns and rave whistles. And then there’s Kelly Llorenna’s belted out lyrics. She was only 16 when she recorded the vocals!

Love it or hate it there is no denying that this was and massive hit. Naturally it dominated Europe but was also successful in Australia. First released in 1992 but a 1995 re-release saw it reach the mainstream charts to become an icon of the rave scene.

While way too poppy for the Madchester scene it was inspired by a night at The Haçienda nightclub. It has that feel of a night enhanced by… substances. Does it successfully capture the early 90s UK on the brink of rave culture? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But it makes me want to dance with glow sticks.

5 August 2025
Take A Letter Maria, File It Under One-Hit Wonder

In August of 1969 a singer entered Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama and began to lay down tracks for his new album. The legendary studio, opened six months earlier by a group of session musicians unhappy with their previous employer, had yet to make any great impact and needed a hit. The singer, R. B. Greaves, already had an album and several singles under his belt but was a complete unknown in the US.

The cover of R.B. Greaves first album ‘to be cont’d’ from 1966. It was released in the UK while he was performing under the name Sonny Childe with with his band T.N.T

Ronald Bertram Aloysius Greaves III was born on a US Army base in Guyana in 1943. He grew up on a Seminole Indian reservation in the US and then moved to England in 1963. It was there that he began to perform under the name Sonny Childe. The vocal resemblance to his uncle, Sam Cooke, was noticeable especially when he performed covers of Cooke’s hits. That information looked good on the marquees too. Whether he really was related or not is up for debate. Together with the band he put together he was pretty hot stuff on the UK nightclub scene for a while. They released an album and a few singles together as Sonny Childe and TNT. Though it never made a dent in the charts the self-penned Heartbreak is a certified dancefloor-melter.

He soon dropped the band and returned to the US where he would release a couple more singles. Check out Love is in the Air for a superb Northern Soul spin. Unfortunately, stardom was still out of reach.

An advertisement in the Gloucester Citizen from 1967 which bills Sonny Childe (R.B. Greaves) as ‘the late, great, Sam Cooke’s nephew’

R. B. Greaves then came to the attention of Ahmet Ertegun, visionary co-founder of Atlantic Records who launched the careers of legends like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. Ertegun signed Greaves to his label and personally oversaw production of his self-titled US debut album. The album features several covers, but Greaves wrote half the tracks including one which would be the first single.

Take a Letter Maria tells the story of a man’s response after discovering his wife’s infidelity. There’s many a singer that’d go straight for the gun, or the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Greaves instead calmly drafts a letter and ensures his lawyer is copied on the correspondence. Then he deftly makes his move on his secretary, while all but admitting his workaholic ways caused the breakdown of his marriage. Smooth.

The copy of Take a Letter Maria that I picked up second hand. I love how the original owner has carefully customised the sleeve with the song and artist using a typewriter. It feels oddly appropriate given the theme of the song. I bet this lad went far. Spoiler: he did, a high-ranking position with the South Australian police force. Yes, I googled him.

The lyrics are complimented by a catchy Latin influenced pop soul rhythm. Mariachi horns provide the standout hook that would send the track hurtling up the charts. Released in September 1969 the song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the end of November. Wedding Bell Blues, by The 5th Dimension was number one. By the end of the year, it sold one million copies, earning gold record certification from the RIAA. It went on to sell more than a million more.

Take a Letter Maria was the first hit to come out of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Many more hits were to come. Coincidentally while Greaves recorded Take a Letter Maria during the day, The Rolling Stones were in the same studio at night recording Wild Horses and Brown Sugar.

These hits have continued to resonate with current audiences but Take a Letter Maria is almost forgotten. I remember hearing this track constantly on the radio in the 80s and 90s. It hasn’t had much impact on pop culture this century though. It’s the type of track that would kill if it appeared in a Tarantino flick but it’s yet to have a viral moment. Maybe it’s too outdated for that.

Nowadays the song comes across as charmingly quaint. The days of dictating letters and hitting on secretaries are over. Artificial Intelligence would now be the secretary writing the letter. But people have been having relationships with chatbots lately so maybe it’s not that irrelevant.

R. B. Greaves continued to write and record, but never reached the success he had with Maria. Another single from the same album came close. His cover of (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me just missed the Top 20. He died September 2012 at 68 years old of prostate cancer.

24 July 2025
The High-Flying San Francisco Sound of The Matrix Nightclub

There’s a scene in the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where Hunter S. Thompson recalls an acid trip he experienced at a San Francisco nightclub in the sixties while Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane plays. The club did exist, and Thompson was a regular. In reality, it was a small club started by a young musician in an ex-pizza parlour to showcase a band he wanted to put together. The musician was Marty Balin, the band became Jefferson Airplane and the club was The Matrix.

As far as I can tell the club was never as big as it appeared in the movie even though it did go through a few renovations. Bands would perform on the 3 by 5.5 metre stage at the back of the club next to the kitchen and sound booth. It was an intimate venue, relatively speaking. Capacity was about 100 to 120 people. The hieroglyphs painted on one of the walls are visible behind the band on the cover of Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow. On another wall, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, each carrying musical instruments.

The photograph on the cover of Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow was shot at The Matrix nightclub, San Francisco.

It was a musician’s bar above all else. They played there, they hung out there, they experimented there. The club opened in August 1965 and quickly established a packed schedule, featuring live music six to seven nights a week. Performances ranged from stripped back blues (Lightnin’ Hopkins had regular gigs) to early shows from The Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. This eclectic mix of rock, folk, blues, and jazz performances was influential in cultivating the San Francisco Sound, a psychedelic fusion of the genres.

In 1966 or ‘67 Balin sold his share of the club to focus on Jefferson Airplane. But the live music continued. Performers included John Lee Hooker, The Velvet Underground, and an early gig from a then relatively unknown Bruce Springsteen. The club closed in 1972, amid some possible financial difficulties, but mostly because the times they were a-changing.

The club was so of its time that it’s fitting that it closed when it did. By the early 1970s, the San Francisco Sound that The Matrix helped pioneer was giving way to new genres and larger venues. Bands that once played intimate clubs were now filling arenas, and the demand for small, experimental venues declined.

Though its doors have long since closed, the club lives on through the many official and bootleg recordings that captured its unforgettable nights. Peter Abram, audiophile, and co-owner of The Matrix created the fairly sophisticated audio setup in the club. He included an Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder and almost all the gigs were recorded, though a lot the tapes were subsequently reused. The historic recordings are surprisingly clear and well-mixed and feature improvised jam sessions, unreleased songs and early gigs from artists who would later become legendary.

Hunter S. Thompson illustration by yours truly.

According to a newspaper article from 1965 announcing the opening of the club, the owners said that The Matrix means “a place where something of value originates and develops.” Marty Balin created a cultural icon that launched careers and helped create a new sound. Now a place that had such a big impact on music has almost become forgotten (no prizes for guessing what comes up when you google The Matrix).

On the day of publishing this article (18^th July, coincidentally Hunter S. Thompson’s birthday) a new exhibition about The Matrix has just opened at the Haight Street Art Centre showcasing items from Balin’s estate. The gallery specialises in poster art, another thing The Matrix was influential in. Hopefully it’s the start of bringing this important piece of musical history back into the public’s attention. In the meantime, I recommend you put on Jefferson Airplane – Return to the Matrix. Sit back and listen to the ambience of the room. Hear Grace and Marty reminiscing about the club while interacting with the crowd. Close your eyes and pretend you’re back in time. I dare you to tell me you don’t get chills.

18 July 2025