“My access to music when I was growing up was through pirate radio, you know, transistor radio under the pillow, listening to one more and then ‘just one more’ until your favourite track comes on.”
Robert Palmer
Introduction
Suave, sophisticated and with a voice to die for, Robert Palmer’s music is a popular choice in a karaoke bar or whose music you want to dance to at a wedding. While researching this music legend, I quickly discovered Palmer was very private. An enigma whose nut I was determined to crack. With little information about Robert out there on the internet, this made this piece a challenge. A man of contradictions, with several myths swirling around this pop star who reminds a lot of the Roxy Music singer Brian Ferry. A master of rock, blues and jazz, Palmer was someone who just looked good in a suit and was forever draped in a bevvy of beauties in his videos of the MTV generation.
The Man Himself
Alan Robert Taylor was born in Batley, West Yorkshire in 1949. The son of Anne and Leslie Palmer, his father was in the Royal Naval, and the family moved to Malta when Robert was a child. Growing up, Palmer listened to the American Forces Network on the Mediterranean island and was highly influenced by the music of Otis Redding. Moving back to England when he was 12, the family settled in Scarborough. His father was based at RAF Fylingdales, and his mother ran a guest house.
Palmer went to Scarborough Boys’ High School, leaving when he was 16 to study art at Scarborough School of Art & Design. He gave up on the idea of an art career and went to work at the Scarborough Evening News. A skinny lad with bleached hair who worked as a technician, partial to the odd joint. A smoking habit that got him in trouble when the police raided his bedsit and a joint end. He was sacked from his job as a result. However, it was clear at this stage that his heart was not in journalism and at the age of 15, Robert started guitar lessons and joined a band called The Mandrakes. He sang in the band, but one night, The Alan Brown Set were without a singer at Scarborough Spa, and Robert stepped in. He never looked back and changed his name to Robert Palmer. Palmer moved to London and rented a basement flat in Hampstead, joining a jazz band called Dada that had Elkie Brooks. The pair later left and formed a duo, a rhythm-and-blues group called Vinegar Joe. They recorded three albums, Vinegar Joe (1972), Rock n Roll Gypsies(1972), and Six Star General (1973) for Island Records. Unable to achieve commercial success, they split in March 1974, and Island signed Palmer to a solo deal.
In 1975, Robert moved to New York, recording the album Pressure Drop in Greenwich Village. The album had an iconic cover, and a photograph by Graham Hughes of a naked girl on a balcony was shown. It only reached 136 in the US album charts. Two further albums, Some People Can Do What They Like and Double Fun, were unsuccessful. However, the third album did have one Top 20 hit in the USA with Every Kinda People, a Caribbean–influenced track that became a staple of easy–listening radio. The song was written by former Free bassist and Island Records labelmate Andy Fraser, who recorded his unreleased version, which Palmer had heard. This would be followed by the 1979 album Secrets, which gave him his second Top 20 single with Moon Martin’s Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor).
The 1980s
With the dawn of the MTV generation, Palmer became a sought-after commodity. His slick image was perfect for the music video product. Looking for Clues, which aired on its first day of transmission on 1 August 1981. Palmer played bass, percussion, and the xylophone solo in the middle. It was a success, followed by the release of 1982’s Some Guys Have All The Luck. In 1983, he released Pride, which was recorded in the Bahamas and Little Chalfont, England. Although not a commercial success, it featured the title song You Are In My System. He would go on to work with Duran Duran, forming the supergroup The Power Station. The band scored three U.S. Top 10 hits, including Communication and a cover of T. Rex’s Get It On. They split in 1985, and Robert recorded the album Riptide, featuring the iconic song Addicted to Love, which later won him a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. The video for Addicted to Love was directed by the British fashion and society photographer Terence Donovan. A lip-synced video that lasted for 15 minutes.
Heavy Nova would follow in 1988, with Terrence Donovan again directing the video Simply Irresistible. The song appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, perhaps the most memorable being 1988’s Cocktail, in which Tom Cruise sang the chorus! Many artists have covered it, notably Van Halen, Garth Brooks, Culture Club, Tina Turner and Florence + The Machine. It reached No. 2 in the US Charts and was his last hit in America. It earned him his second Grammy. The ballad She Makes My Day also was a hit in the UK, peaking at No. 6.
The 1990s
Named by Rolling Stone as “Best Dressed Male Artist”, Palmer recorded his tenth album, Don’t Explain, in 1990. It features a reggae version of Bob Dylan’s I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, in a collaboration with UB40, which secured a No. 6 placing in the UK, and the Marvin Gaye cover Mercy Me. This will be followed by the album Honey, which features three UK hits: Girl U Want, Know By Now, and You Blow Me Away. He also reunited with The Power Station to release Living in Fear in 1996. Rhythm and Blues would follow in 1996.
The 2000s
His next album came in 2003, entitled Drive. It featured cover songs, including ZZ Top’s TV Dinners. Co-written by his son James, a drummer, this was the start of a comeback but would sadly be his last release. Just two days after travelling to Paris with his young girlfriend, Mary Ambrose, Robert suffered a massive heart attack at the luxury Warwick Hotel just off the Champs-Elysees when around 2 am on Friday, September 26, 2003, after a relaxed night of dinner and a movie, he collapsed and died from a massive heart attack. He was 54. A chain smoker who was rumoured to smoke 60 Dunhills a day. Ironically, he had received a clean bill of health several days earlier—a man whose greatest passion in life was building model trucks and aeroplanes.
