Songfacts®:

• Ron Banks, organizer and lead singer of The Dramatics, said after the success of The Dramatics' hit "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" in 1971, many people thought that the Detroit-based group had their first and last hit. So, they immediately released this song, which gave them a second hit and humbled the record producing naysayers. Like their previous hit, second tenor-baritone William "Wee Gee" Howard takes the lead. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Hal - Atlanta, GA
• In this ballad written by Detroit songwriter Tony Hester, the narrator is distraught over a rift with his lover and wants to go out into the rain to mask his tears. Dramatics producer Don Davis says Hester was the group's saving grace after they lost their first Stax record deal. "Tony had a creative thing for the Dramatics," he explained to Billboard. "I re-signed the group because of the songs Tony presented to me. When we got together with him, 'In the Rain' stuck out as one of the songs we could rebuild the Dramatics with." Hester wrote and produced several tunes for the group, including the 1971 hits "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" and "Get Up and Get Down."
• The backing band includes bassist Michael Henderson, who often worked with Miles Davis in the '70s, and three of Motown's Funk Brothers: pianist Johnny Griffith, guitarist Dennis Coffey and drummer Uriel Jones. The track is also notable for its stormy sound effects, which lead into Coffey's guitar intro. Coffey used an Echoplex effect unit to get the delay.
• Berry Gordy had a lock on Detroit-based music with his legendary Motown Records, and any harmonizing soul singers coming up in the city were bound to be compared to the label's Temptations. Davis knew this and worked hard to cultivate a distinct sound for the group, who were signed to the rival soul label Stax/Volt. Part of the plan was emphasizing the tenor voices of Ron Banks and especially William "Wee Gee" Howard, whose vocals had an uncanny similarity to Temptations lead singer David Ruffin. "We were trying to get Wee Gee to sound more and more like himself, rather than like Ruffin," Davis explained. "On the very first record he made with us, 'Your Love Was Strange,' he came off sounding so much like David that we said, 'We've got to get away from that,' and get a lot of that tenor sound into this thing and set the mood for the group."
• Dennis Coffey, who played on many of the psychedelic hit for The Temptations, played guitar on this track. Coffey used an Echoplex delay unit to get the distinctive sound.
  
  Five years later when Coffey was working with The Floaters, he let them use his Echoplex to get the same sound on their hit "Float On."
• R&B singer Keith Sweat covered this in 1987 on his debut album, Make It Last Forever.
• Female R&B group Xscape recorded this for the 1997 romantic comedy Love Jones, starring Nia Long and Larenz Tate.