Beth Ditto had never heard of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ until she heard Jessie Ware singing it during a rain storm.
The 43-year-old singer was performing alongside her Gossip bandmates at the Glastonbury festival in 2007 around the time that Rihanna was dominating the charts around the world with her signature hit but had no clue when she heard a then-unknown Jessie singing the infamous ‘ella, ella, ella’ hook in the audience during a rainstorm that it was a real song.
Speaking on the ‘Table Manners’ podcast, she told ‘Free Yourself’ hitmaker Jessie and her mother Lennie Ware: “I did not realise that was you, and in my memory, the first time I’d ever heard the song ‘Umbrella’ was you and your friend. I remember the two of you, your haircut…everybody did it because you had an umbrella.
“It’s such a core memory for me because I remember that day that these two girls walked up to me, I remember y’all singing ‘Umbrella, ella, ella’ and I was thinking ‘These girls are singing a hit!’ I did not know it was a Rihanna song, I thought you made it up!”
The ‘Heavy Cross’ rocker admitted that she has tried to tell the story so many times over the years and always remembered that Jessie – who has since gone on to a pop career herself – had been singing it in the rain all those years ago.
“I’d never even heard that song, it doesn’t sound that song crazy when I tell you. I’ve tried to retell that story. I thought two girls made it up in the rain and then I was like ‘Oh my God, that was you!’ I thought you wrote ‘Umbrella’.