Island's Palmer Just Wants To Write, Record And Play Music
With his fifth Island release, Robert Palmer is an artist on the verge of a breakthrough. Secrets is the highest debut on the Cash Box Top 200 Albums chart this week at #87 bullet, following last year's Double Fun LP which reached the #26 spot.
Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) is this week's highest debuting single as well, coming on at #75 bullet. Last year, Palmer had his first Top 15 single with Every Kinda People, and Island is hoping to push Bad Case even further. But such matters are of little concern to the artist.
"I have to make music, write songs," says Palmer. "I honestly like pop music and I can't really think of anything else to do. "I don't care what happens after the record's done, that's just happy trappings. To me, success is just an abstract. It used to frighten me but not anymore."
Palmer's fondness for his livelihood extends beyond his writing and recording. He's also one of the few performers who thrives on the road, spending about six months each year doing shows. He's currently rehearsing his four-piece band for a series of 90-100 minute shows later this summer featuring material from his five Island releases.
"I love the road," says Palmer. "For six where I months, six days a week it feels good and I don't think about anything else, except maybe finding a good restaurant after the show. Then when it's over I go home to Nassau, meditate about what happened and decide what comes next."
But things weren't always so well defined for the blond soul singer, even after he established himself as a solo act following stints with Vinegar Joe, Dada, Alan Bown and his first band, the Mandrakes.
"It took me three LPs to get to the point where I could choose to stop and look at what had gone on," Palmer recalls. "But the first three LPs had to happen that way to get me where I am now. It was such a delight, though, for three years I didn't know how to stop."
Background Palmer was born in England, the son of a Navy man. His family moved to Malta when he was very young, returning to England when Robert was nine.
As a teenager Palmer first played harmonica, and has since picked up bass, percussion and rhythm guitar as well. But on stage he always sticks to his emotionally intense, well -phrased singing. He credits Otis Redding with turning him on to R&B through his records, and says he learned to sing listening to Redding, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and other soul singers.
"I've concentrated on trying to reproduce the aura of music I like without copying the style of any one singer," maintains Palmer.
By the time he was 19, Palmer was singing for Alan Bown, who led one of Britain's first horn bands. A year and a half later he joined the jazz-rock ensemble Dada, which eventually became Vinegar Joe. Vinegar Joe achieved some success in Europe, but in early 1974 Palmer quit the band and took some solo tapes to Chris Blackwell of Island, which had recorded Bown and Vinegar Joe.
Island immediately made a deal with Palmer, and his first solo LP, Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley was a critical success. Between tours he then recorded Pressure Drop and Some People Can Do What They Like.
Since moving to Nassau in the Bahamas two and a half years ago, Palmer has learned how to take time off from the record-tour-record cycle. He now has his own studio at home where he spends half the year.
On Secrets and Double Fun, Palmer served as producer as well as performer and songwriter. Double Fun was co-produced with Tom Moulton, but Palmer handled the boards himself on Secrets.
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"I learned a lot from Tom doing Double Fun so I decided to give it a try myself on the new album. I'd rather take my own chances at this point than someone else's. And I'm very satisfied with the result," reports Palmer. "In fact, I feel more strongly about Secrets than anything I've ever done. I'm especially happy to be working with a beat band again. There are hardly any overdubs on the new album."
The first single off Secrets, Moon Martin's Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor), made it on the album only through a quirk of fate.
"We were playing a gig in Kansas City," recalls Palmer, "and the promoter played Moon's LP for us on the way to the hall. We played Bad Case during our soundcheck and put it in the act that night."
As is most of Palmer's material, Bad Case Of Loving You is a pop song in the traditional boy-girl mode.
"I like to work in that pop theme because it can get to the gut emotional level," Palmer explains. "If I sing about a specific inspiration it's too nuts, too self-indulgent. I can take a lot of license with that form. Really, I use it as a discipline."
Palmer has had success as a disco artist as well. Best Of Both Worlds off Double Fun was especially big in Europe in the discos, to the surprise of its author.
"I didn't think of the song as a disco number when I did it, but it really happened in the European discos. Everywhere I went there people got up to dance when it came on and it was really a thrill for me. I didn't even understand the genre when I cut it."
It's no surprise that Palmer has had a success in a variety of styles, such as pop, rock, R&B, disco and reggae. He's a full-time student of popular music, delving into whatever is happening in the country he's in at the time. After a recent trip to Africa, Palmer came back with a whole new field of interest.
"I'm into a new musical language now, Nigerian pop," he says. "It's a new language, with 10 percussions and a joyous, rhythmic sound that's like nothing you've ever heard."
As far as the current American pop scene goes, Palmer has firm opinions on the disco movement that's swept the country.
"I like some of the developments in disco as it gets more sophisticated, like Hot Stuff," he opines. "But when something supercedes everything else I turn against it. I like variety.
"What's worse than repetitive disco is punk players who barely learn their instruments before they get into the business runaround. I really like reggae, but a lot of reggae bands are on self-destructive trips that I worry about."
Palmer is currently looking into the possibility of making a video disc recording. He's located a 900-seat studio in Paris where he'd like to cut a 24-track, five-camera video disc, interplaying still pictures with the studio imagery. He says Jealous, the probable second single off Secrets, would be perfect to film/record.
As for his next album, Palmer wants to make a live record during his next tour. Dates are now being lined up for the tour. But none of the dates are likely to have the impact on Palmer that his recent participation in Eric Clapton's wedding celebration did. "What a thrill it was," recalls Palmer. "I got to sing with three of the Beatles on stage at one time. No press, no bother, just a good party. It was once in a blue moon."
Joey Berlin (Cash Box - July 21, 1979)