Palming Off The Past
Robert Palmer's roguish dilettantism will get the better of him one of these days. It might have been anticipated that the pre-set routines of a live album would be the noose to string up those British blues band skeletons for all to see. Maybe It's Live instead keeps the closest door pushed to, if not exactly locked.
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For a start, only the first side is live (plus an odd track rather needlessly tacked on to the end of side two), recorded in London in November 1980. And there's nothing in the rough-cut revamps of Palmer chestnuts to suggest the habitual slack exaggeration of in-person interpretation which ballasts most live records into the depths of boredom.
Five songs are despatched inside twenty minutes and none are allowed to overstay their welcome.
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I could charitably describe the selection of songs as a refashioned slant on Palmer's progress, from vacationing white dude high on gumbo 'n' beans to chameleonic neu-funk sharper. Certainly the running order turns out most of his wardrobe, the belting New Orelans thud of Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley (though one misses the killer Sailing Shoes/Hey Julia build-up of the studio version), the light-skinned reggae skein of What's It Take and Best Of Both Worlds, the beautiful New Providence fantasy on Philly balladry of Every Kinda People and the reversion to hard-rock brawn on Bad Case Of Loving You - only the Johnny And Mary mode is absent, saved for the studio side.
I could also point to the reserved choice of a five-piece group or the grainy texture of the mix, which often buries the vocals and lends a booming stadium dimension to the overall sound, as a disavowal of boastful performance indulgences and a concern for feel over gloss; but I rather suspect that the artiste was more concerned with padding a handful of studio tracks with a functional fillip of live hits. Robert Palmer is not a man I would accredit with a high modesty rating. Still, the choice amounts to a virtual run of winners and the excision of flab is a pleasure in itself.
Given that there are only four 'new' tracks, then, what clothes is Robert trying on now? Some Guys Have All The Luck you already know - actually a rather sunny melody with its belly blown out by Palmer's self-caricaturing vocal and the disjointed screen of effects. It dips into Style Kills - a title to cue up repentance, surely? - which is the latest Palmer/Numan collaboration. Two men in search of credibility, artistic substance except Palmer's already there and Numan never will be.
Style Kills is a joyless choker of mad-dog guitar ratcheting, detail and finesse chewed up and discharged: not every exciting. The following Si Chatouilleux sounds far more in the cast of I Dream Of Wires. A blipping grid of synths is the deceptively centrifugal element of a song Palmer won't submit to, choosing instead an elliptical French rap for his part: more interesting.
Which leaves Maybe It's You, which is Palmer back in his third-gear R&B streamliner, which is ... OK. Just OK.
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As a Robert Palmer record, Maybe It's Live disappoints - though as a characteristic Palmer outing it's certainly in key with its predecessors. He'll never escape his inconsistencies - the feeling that at the back of every record lies a fraudulent treatise on slumming in music he can't be a real part of, be it mardi gras funk or moderne dance - and much of the interest in any Palmer LP is in hearing which stylistic niches he is squeezing into now and how well he fits them.
It shouldn't be forgotten, though, just what a great singer Palmer is. His treatment of the song can be wholly startling on occasion, and the most annoying aspect of the live tracks is that his vocals never come through as they should. On a track like Every Kinda People that's frustrating - and it makes me wish he'd cut a set that relied solely on his voice, untangled from fashionable frills. Some guys should push their luck.
Richard Cook (New Musical Express - April 1982)