ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

The simply irresistible Robert Palmer, Geoff Brown bids farewell.

A hitmaker through three decades on both sides of the Atlantic, Palmer's career blossomed as a singer and songwriter when he quit Vinegar Joe at the start of 1974 and jetted to the USA to record his debut solo LP, Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley. Using The Meters and Little Feat and studios in New Orleans and New York, it was the realisation of a dream for a young man steeped in African-American music. "I was at once really wired but at the same time I was as peaceful as I've ever felt. It was an amazing sensation," he told me on the eve of his first album's release. It was the second of several interviews over the years, and they were always a pleasure, in the '70s, it was unusual to meet a musician who had something interesting to say about Isaac Hayes, George Clinton and the soul'n'funk-like.

Born in Batley in 1949, he was raised in Malta and returned to Yorkshire, playing in his first band, The Mandrakes, and training as a graphic designer. He moved to London in 1969. Briefly in Alan Bown, he then joined Dada, a sprawling jazz-rock fusion outfit later trimmed to Vinegar Joe (strong live, weak on disc), who lasted for three Island albums.

Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley and his next two albums - Pressure Drop ('75) and Some People Can Do What They Like ('76) - expressed Palmer's refined R&B and soul taste in a UK milieu newly fascinated with punk. The next three albums added unexpected '60s covers (The Beatles' Not A Second Time on 1980's Clues) to mature originals such as Johnny And Mary.

His experience in design informed his early album sleeve concepts, which usually featured the comely female form déshabillée. This, his good looks and a taste for well-cut clothes, often attracted the rock press's opprobrium: he was too clever and too handsome by half, a touch arrogant and was manifestly having too good a time. "I can't think of any negative aspects at all," he said to me of his early solo career. "Sometimes I worry why there's nothing wrong."

A serious artist, he often referred to new recordings as "the work", but partied hard too. This did not prevent him from accumulating an impressive catalogue, some of it ill-advised (cf the Power Station records, the '92 set of standards Ridin' High) but from 1978's Every Kinda People, a Number 16 US hit, Palmer charted regularly on both sides of the Atlantic.

Throughout, he worked with outstanding talents - from Barry White's arranger Gene Page and Motown's bassist James Jamerson to effective collaborations with Gary Numan, UB40 and Bernard Edwards, who produced his US Number 1 Addicted To Love.

He'd moved from London to New York to the Bahamas to Lugano, Switzerland, and although the '90s hadn't been hugely successful, his recent album, Drive, signalled a return to R&B, soul and, thus, to form. He died on September 26 (2003) in Paris, aged 54.

Geoff Brown (MOJO - 2003)