ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

Cool and suave, Robert Palmer does not impress easily. But the English singer admitted when he met one of his idols last year, he did succumb - somewhat at least - to awe.

The idol was Chaka Khan. "I bumped into her at a club," Palmer said in a recent interview here. "We hit it off immediately. I spent the evening with her. I was impressed. She's the one singer I've always wanted to sing with."

Visions of a duet were dancing in his head. "I told her I was recording and she wanted to come to the studio," he said. "She showed up and we sang this song together that I was working on. The record sounded great."

The song was the rocking Addicted To Love, the first Top 10 single in Palmer's solo recording career, which stretches back to 1974.

But wait. Khan does not sing on Addicted To Love. The album credits Fonzie Thornton and Benny Diggs for background vocals. What happened? "Politics intervened," Palmer explained. "Her people said it was a conflict of interest. She would have three singles out at the same time."

Erasing her from the tape, he said, was heartbreaking. But she does get credit for the vocal arrangement. "She threw parts in and helped develop the song," he said. "I couldn't use her vocals but she deserves credit for what she contributed to the arrangement."

Palmer is a sharp-tongued, hard-boiled cynic, his words frequently dripping with sarcasm. Reportedly, though, he has been mellowing. "No, I haven't," he said. "I'm just better at disguising it these days. I'm the same guy underneath."

Women have always been wild about Palmer. For these panting females, the big attraction at his concerts was not the music but him. It has always irritated him that people paid so much attention to how he looks. "It would get on my nerves," he said. "The media made it worse. They didn't know much about my music so they dealt with these other superficial things. But it's not so much of a problem anymore. Now I have hit records they can talk about."

Refreshingly, Palmer avoids traditional rock-singer antics. His understated vocals - particularly on Addicted To Love - bring a touch of class to a genre characterized by singers who confuse screeching with singing.

Addicted To Love is the second single from Palmer's solo Island Records album, Riptide, released last fall. With the exception of the title song, this is not a typical Palmer album. It is basically mainstream rock. Yet he has always specialized in unorthodox material, high-quality songs that do not seem to have pop-radio appeal.

Growing up in England, he absorbed all sorts of influences, from English rock and American soul to ska and blues. Before he went solo in 1974, he sang in several bands and maintained a free-wheeling style that did not fit easily into any category.

Dennis Hunt (Reading Eagle - May 1986)