“It’s Raining Men” – Single by the Weather Girls from the album Success
Released September 10, 1982
Recorded 1982
Label CBS, Columbia
Songwriters Paul Jabara andPaul Shaffer
Producers Paul Jabara and Bob Esty
Charted no.46 in US; No.2 in UK; No.16 in Australia; No.43 in West Germany.
The Weather Girls were the duo of Martha Wash and Izora Armstead, who stood out from other disco divas because of their voices and their size. Both honed their singing in church and developed remarkably powerful voices. They were overweight and looked nothing like most other popular female singers (especially Diana Ross!), but that didn’t deter the singer/producer Sylvester, who hired them to sing on his recordings, including the 1978 hit “Dance (Disco Heat),” which was released on Fantasy Records and made #19 in the US.
The music video for “It’s Raining Men”, released in the winter of 1982, was directed by Gary Keys and filmed in an abandoned building in New York City. Due to limited support from Columbia Records, “It’s Raining Men” was a low-budget video. Wash described the video’s conception: “God, that was a cheesy video! We filmed it in an abandoned building [in NYC] in the dead of winter. There was no heat and everybody was wearing [winter] coats. That part in the video where we fall out of the sky, well, we landed on these mattresses and found out [the next day] they were infested with bugs. For days afterwards Izora and I were scratching [ourselves]! It was awful!”
“It’s Raining Men” was a number-one dance hit in the United States, and reached the top ten in various other countries worldwide. VH1 listed the song as one of the Greatest Songs of the 1980s as well as one of the Greatest Songs of the 2000s decade.
Musicians:
Izora Armstead,[a] Martha Wash – lead vocals
Bob Esty – keyboards, synthesizer
Greg Mathieson – piano
Paul Delph – synthesizer
Lee Sklar – bass guitar
Michael Landau – guitar
Carlos Vega – drums
Stephanie Spruill, Julia Waters-Tillman, Maxine Waters-Willard, Zenobia Conkerite – background vocals
