Looks Like Rain is a 1969 concept album by singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. After recording his debut album with RCA, Newbury was dissatisfied with the resulting album and left RCA to pursue a style closer to his tastes. Recorded at Cinderella Sound, as his next two albums would be, the result is widely considered his first real recording and represents a peak in the singer songwriter movement, especially for Nashville. The sound and style of the record would be highly influential during the Outlaw Movement during country music in the 1970s especially on albums by David Allan Coe and Waylon Jennings. Linking the tracks with delicate arrangements and liberal amount of atmosphere, the record contains some of Newbury's most celebrated compositions including "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye", "33rd of August", "I Don't Think Much About Her No More", and "San Francisco Mabel Joy". AllMusic's review of the album concludes, "Looks Like Rain is so fine, so mysterious in its pace, dimension, quark strangeness and charm, it defies any attempt at strict categorization or criticism; a rare work of genius." Looks Like Rain was collected for CD issue on the eight-disc Mickey Newbury Collection from Mountain Retreat, Newbury's own label in the mid-1990s, along with nine other Newbury albums from 1969–1981. In 2011, it was reissued again, both separately and as part of the four-disc Mickey Newbury box set An American Trilogy, alongside two other albums recorded at Cinderella Sound, Frisco Mabel Joy and Heaven Help the Child. This release marks the first time that Looks Like Rain has been released on CD in remastered form, after the original master tapes were rediscovered in 2010.
Track listing
All tracks composed by Mickey Newbury; except where indicated
"Write a Song a Song/Angeline"
"She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye"
"I Don't Think Much About Her No More"
"T. Total Tommy"
"33rd of August/When the Baby in My Lady Gets the Blues"
The Box Tops recorded a presumably early version of "San Francisco Mabel Joy" under the title "Georgia Farm Boy," which was included as a bonus track on the 2000 reissue of 1967's The Letter/Neon Rainbow.
Waylon Jennings cut "The 33rd of August" for his 1970 album Waylon.
Joan Baez recorded "San Francisco Mabel Joy," "Angeline," and "33rd of August" for her 1971 hit double albumBlessed Are...
Waylon Jennings included "San Francisco Mabel Joy" on his 1973 breakthrough Lonesome, On'ry and Mean.
Johnny Cash performed "I Don't Think Much About Her No More" with the Tennessee Three on his ABC show on October 7, 1970. Bobby Bare recorded "I Don't Think Much About Her No More" in 1973. Tammy Wynette recorded the song for her 1974 album Woman to Woman.Don Williams also recorded the song the same year. Vampire Weekend recorded "I Don't Think Much About Her No More" on their 2019 album Father of the Bride as a bonus track.
