REQUEST: Ann Peebles - Part Time Love 1971

For reasons seemingly lost to history, Ann Peebles' second album, Part Time Love, featured four songs that were lifted from her debut LP, This Is Ann Peebles, which came and went with little notice less than a year earlier. Despite the recycling of "It's Your Thing," "Crazy About You Baby," "Give Me Some Credit," and "Solid Foundation," Part Time Love does have a different overall feel that sets it apart from Peebles' first set. Peebles hardly seemed like a beginner on This Is Ann Peebles, but she's even more confident on Part Time Love's new material, with a tougher and more soulful edge announcing itself on "I'll Get Along" and the title cut, and while the Hi Records house band are as tight as ever here, the newer songs have a funkier energy that suggests how much was changing in R&B as the 1960s gave way to the '70s. Part Time Love also isn't filled with a number of instantly recognizable covers like the debut, forcing fans to make a mental comparison between Peebles and the likes of Aretha Franklin (though this does carry over This Is Ann Peebles' take on the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing"), and Peebles puts her brand on several new tunes on this album, giving them a fresh and vibrant reading that's passionate and effective. If Part Time Love is flawed, it's because this really seems more like half an album -- running a mere 27 minutes and featuring four songs from Peebles' barely cold debut album, this is a curiously skimpy effort from a singer as accomplished as this, though that's not the sort of complaint that's likely to register when you're listing to music as beautifully crafted as this. AMG.

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REQUEST: Ann Peebles - I Can't Stand The Rain 1974

This wonderful album, originally released in 1974 on the Memphis-based Hi Records label, deserved a wider audience than it ended up getting at the time. It played to Ann Peebles' great strength, her poised and sultry voice, and surrounded by the sparse, easy funkiness of the trademark Hi rhythm section and producer Willie Mitchell's perfect use of horns and strings, she sings like a resilient but disappointed angel on this impressive set of songs about the darker side of love. Her best song is here, the eccentric but brilliant "I Can't Stand the Rain," along with a marvelous version of Joe Simon's "(You Keep Me) Hangin' On," and perfect readings of a pair of Earl Randle songs, "If We Can't Trust Each Other" and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." Peebles sings her heart out, and with those somehow bright-sounding Hi grooves behind her, it all comes together to make a classic album of dark, bouncy, and beautiful Southern soul. AMG.

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Ann Peebles - Straight from the heart 1972

A lean, tough set that was not only a triumph for Peebles, but illustrated how the Hi label had surpassed its crosstown Stax rival for quality Memphis soul in the early '70s. The guitars are spare, funky, and bluesy, the horn section punchy, and the material far earthier and down-home than the increasingly formulaic grooves at Stax. There were three modest R&B hits on the album ("Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love," "I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home," "Somebody's on Your Case"), much of which was penned by Peebles or her husband Don Bryant. Peebles' vocals were convincingly biting, and she never, unlike many other singers of the era, tried too hard for her own good. The main flaw of the record is its length (26 minutes), which was short even by early-'70s standards. AMG.

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