Brunching With Robert Palmer

Publié le par olivier

Brunching With Robert Palmer

If Robert Palmer were a cocktail he'd be a Manhattan: two shots rye, very wry, whiskey, one shot vermouth for that sweet aftertaste you don't expect. Palmer, above anything else, hates to be predictable, and he isn't.

For a start, he's shorter and set more like a thug, his skin more mottled and rough, than the Armani silk-smooth complexion his video image suggests. Those videos have catapulted him to an omnipresence on music television over the past few years. The image lingers: Palmer, the lothario in an exquisite suit, backed by airbrushed and airheaded bimbos strutting and pouting in identical designer black spray-on dresses.

They notched up a multi-millions success for the single Addicted To Love and labelled Palmer as the most outrageous of sexists. The label taunts him.

"On my last American tour, the front few rows always dressed up to be the living video. Then they'd find a way of being introduced to me. They'd gone to great lengths to look like that, assuming I'd like it. The whole thing isn't my speed. If somebody's dressing up assuming I'd see it attractive, it's very unfortunate. It feels embarrassing for them and embarrassing for me. The videos were a parody."

Palmer speaks with a grit-and-sand Scarborough flatness, despite having lived most of his life abroad. He grew up in Malta and has since made homes in New York, the Bahamas, Lugano and Milan. Sophisticated is a word that is overused in descriptions of him. The voice suits his character: down to earth, hard-working, value for money (he points out that Don't Explain, his new release, is a double album for the price of one).

Don't Explain has already spawned I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, the top five single with UB40. The megapackage blends heavy rock, happy-go-lucky funk, haunting torch songs (a la the Billie Holiday title track) and moody bossa novas.

The St. James's Hotel and Club in London

The St. James's Hotel and Club in London

We are brunching at the St. James Club, where he likes to reside when in London.

"What do you think about Alaia's stuff?" he asks, wanting to dismiss the idea once and for all that he has a preference for the designer's trademark: very slinky black tourniquet-tight torsos. "Don't you think it's attractive for six-foot beanpoles? And since the archetypal model is that, it's propagating a stereotype. Achieving that aesthetic is a contemporary version of wearing corsets and having your feet bound."

"The last thing it is is sexy," he adds, suggesting that a real man wants a real woman.

"It's a strange personality that goes in for liposuction. it must require discipline. The thought of somebody going through that to achieve an aesthetic ideal which in a ten-year cycle will have changed seems ridiculous to me. Jack Nicholson doesn't have any aesthetic and he's regarded as an attractive man. I can see that."

He nods between stuffing enthusiastic mouthfuls of our St. James Club poached egg into his face. Yes, it is obvious he can see it. Those burning eyes and that slow, practiced corner smile are very Jack.

Brunching With Robert Palmer

"I'm very content with my appearance," says Robert Palmer. "I know men have it easier as they get older. They are regarded as interesting. Women could be the same if they weren't concerned with propagating the stereotype. Is it to do with competition between women that they try to achieve a certain look?"

Is this touching naivety, or is his tongue placed firmly in his cheek? Who knows? That's part of this Palmer mystique, which has taken years to cultivate.

Palmer first practiced being a heartthrob fronting Vinegar Joe with Elkie Brooks, then bucked the trend in the '70s with his white funk. More recently he's been in pursuit of that lithesome bossa nova beat, and letting his vocals slide down standards.

"I have occasional days when I feel handsome, maybe twice a year. I'm seven out of ten today, that's pretty good. Perhaps it's my trousers." They are brown suede, peat smooth. "You feel handsome when things are going your way. Happiness, that fleeting thing, is feeling good, so you don't mind anything about yourself.

"I'm happier since I turned 40. A lot of my ambitions have become reality. At least I'm doing exactly what I want to do. I have my own studio in Milan where my voice sounds as good as singing in the bathroom. I write, I arrange, I record, I listen to it back, I stand by it."

He is a sturdy perfectionist whose love of the creative process is so analytical that he paid a fortune at auction for original manuscripts and printer's proofs of a novel by Jack Vance, his favorite author. "It wasn't really an extravagance," he justifies. "I wanted to see the logical creative process and gain insight for the way I work."

Another Dunhill, another swig of wine. "In the meantime, good living has blurred my once taut outline, but I'm not self-conscious about it."

Brunching With Robert Palmer

His smile is achingly smug. And why not? This is the man who writes about love as a drug, a compulsion, a torture. This is the man who sings to me a line from Aeroplane: "The stars are sparkling in your eyes/take my handkerchief and dry your eyes," just because he "loves that line."

Then he tells me, "The more you love somebody, the more tension exists. I really love that tension." This is the man who has been cozily married for 20 years to Susan, whom he met at a railway station in Slough. I've never seen a photograph of them together. I'd say that was a very clever mystique.

Chrissy Iley (Cash Box Magazine - Dec. 1990)

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