Our September Record of the Month Club pick is the 50th-anniversary reissue of Ann Peebles’ Memphis soul masterpiece, Tellin’ It on Hi Records!
Produced by the legendary Willie Mitchell and backed by the Hi Rhythm Section, this classic has been recently remastered by our good pal Clay Jones.
Club members will score the LP along with an exclusive can koozie. You can join the club at either End of All Music location–Oxford or Fondren–or hit the link in our bio to sign up online.
The record’s release date is Friday, September 11, so we’ll start shipping them out after that.
Mark your calendars: we’re hosting a listening party on Thursday, September 17th at Wonderbird Distillery’s tasting room inside The Lyric on the Oxford Square. They’ve got a great stereo and drinks.
More info from Fat Possum:
Announcing the first vinyl pressing of Ann Peebles – Tellin’ It in 50 years. Recovered from the Hi Records vault and untouched for decades. The tapes were sent to Nashville Tape Transfer for their first listen in fifty years. From there, every step stayed close to home: Remastered by Clay Jones, lacquers cut at Take Out Vinyl, plated and pressed right in Memphis at Memphis Record Pressing.
Ann Peebles was at the height of her fame in 1975 when she cut the album Tellin’ It — she had scored her biggest chart hit the year before with “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” and Tellin’ It reflected the kind of hard-edged but soulful groove that had taken Peebles to the upper reaches of the charts (and was producer Willie Mitchell’s stock in trade).
The album’s opening cut, “Come to Mama,” even features the same sort of fractured rhythmic undercurrent that had hooked “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” but Peebles and Mitchell had the good sense not to deliver ten remakes of her hit; instead, Tellin’ It merges polished production with tough, sinewy grooves (the strings on “Stand By Woman” and “It Was Jealousy” add a touch of class, but don’t clutter up the funk of Howard Grimes’ superb drumming and the punch of the Memphis Horns), and Peebles here reaffirms her status as one of the best female voices in R&B, cutting to the heart and soul of each lyric whether she’s looking for a new man (“Doctor Love Power”) or breaking up someone’s previously happy home (“Stand By Woman”).
And while the disco explosion would make soul sets like this obsolete in a few years, Tellin’ It features plenty of cuts that can fill the dancefloor without robbing Peebles of her soulful passion and sassy spirit. Fine stuff.
