ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

The people at the Cellar Door are calling Robert Palmer "the hottest act we've seen since Patti Smith." When ads for his four-night engagement appeared in the papers here two weeks ago, the club sold out all 1,800 available seats in a single day.

Palmer's music is a pure enough explanation of his drawing power: It's ultimately rhythmic, full of slinky percussion sounds, rough, raw guitar, and spunky keyboard effects. His records, which have received substantial airplay on local FM stations, presold his sound; on stage - this is his Washington debut - there's an unexpected extra: the guy is amazingly dapper, striking a startling resemblance to stage and screen actor Christopher Walken (Next Stop Greenwich Village) and his smoothie English sex appeal even had one fellow in the audience last night screaming out "unbutton your shirt, please, Robert Palmer."

Like many English and Scottish musicians in the past two years, Palmer has borrowed his style from contemporary American rhtyhm'n'blues. There's a heavy emphasis on the field that has been popularized by discos-undulating tension-release patterns that are pierced with flashes of guitar and keyboard riffs. His songs frequently begin with thickly textured rounds of percussion devices, drop into melodies and then shift into another percussion round that leads into still another song. It's minimal art in the best sense, reduced to a musical base that seems to reaffirm the importance of pure movement. Even his throaty, almost growling voiceis used to push momentum rather than melody, something Palmer does on his records but few performers would dare do on stage.

Palmer's six players are all competent, but percussionist Jody Linscott-Brown must be singled out for adding to the music an unusually sophisticated and tasteful blend of congas, timbales, cowbells, tambourines, shakers, and other assorted noise makers. Her sense of punctuation is forceful and astute, even at times musically comic. Also noteworthy is Freddie Wall, whose ability to shift guitar styles adds a subtle touch of individuality to tunes that might otherwise sound repetitive.

Palmer's manager, Bill Valenziano, said last night "with deep regrets" and 'due to the tremendous schedule Robert Palmer had maintained over the last five weeks", he had ordered the Cellar Door to cancel the singer's already sold-out midnight shows tonight and Saturday.

"Obviously this is an inconvenience to our customers" said club owner Sam L'Hommidau. "We're sorry for any problem it may cause."

Tom Zito (The Washington Post - 19 mars 1976)