Chart entered : 20 May 1978
Chart peak : 53 ( 43 in a re-recorded version in 1992 )
Number of hits : 24 ( plus 4 as lead singer of The Power Station )
Robert's one of those artists whose work has sometimes ( one single in particular ) prompted me to think I should investigate him further but I've never quite got round to it.
Robert was born in 1949 in the small Yorkshire town of Batley, now effectively a suburb of Leeds. His father was a naval intelligence officer who moved the family to Scarborough at the end of the fifties. Robert started singing in bands there while still at school. In 1969 he was invited to join psychedelic pop band The Alan Bown ! ( formerly the Alan Bown Set ) to replace Jess Roden. Robert recorded new vocals for all the tracks on their eponymous album including the single "Gypsy Girl" an excellent late sixties pop track in a Marmalade vein but it wasn't a hit . He recorded another album "Listen" with them but immediately afterwards left to join Dada and then suffered the same fate as his predecessor with his vocals being replaced by the incoming singer.
We've covered Dada and its evolution into Vinegar Joe in the Elkie Brooks post. In 1974 , feeling overshadowed by Elkie and wanting to follow his own muse, he arranged a solo deal with Chris Blackwell allegedly behind the others' backs and news of this effectively brought the band to an end.
Essentially Robert solo was something of a latter day Gene Pitney , roaming across different genres and relying on the undoubted quality of his voice to carry people with him. Also like Pitney , it was unimportant to him whether he was singing someone else's songs , his own or , sometimes in his case, a hybrid of the two.
Robert's first solo album was " Sneakin Sally Through The Alley" released in September 1974. It's heavily influenced by the Southern funk / rock sound of Little Feat whose Lowell George is the main guitarist on it but there's also some Hall and Oates like blue-eyed soul.
The singing and playing is superb throughout but it's a bit airless and if you're not a big fan of the styles of music involved there's nothing here that would convert you, certainly not the title track and single about getting caught in adultery which has a good groove but not much in the way of a tune. The album made minor ripples in the U.S. but was ignored over here where I don't think any single was released.
His first UK single was the self-written "Which Of Us Is The Fool" in October 1975. It's a more commercial sound with a loping groove and light disco strings which are slightly at odds with the meaty vocals. The phrasing is also a bit clumsy but with a bit more airplay it could have charted. The album "Pressure Drop" followed a month later which again featured Little Feat and was better received in the US. It's more eclectic than its predecessor retaining the dense funk sound for most tracks - "Work To Make It Work" anticipates Talking Heads - but with excursions into reggae for the Toots and the Maytals cover which gave the album its title -and blue-eyed soul for the two singles. The second "Give Me An Inch" is by far the most commercial track with a catchy refrain and a dramatic string arrangement from Gene Page.
By this time Robert had re-located to New York with his wife. His third album "Some People Can Do What They Like" was released in October 1976. It was recorded in L.A. and largely drops the Little Feat connection apart from an impressive cover of "Spanish Moons". Instead it has more of a laid back rock feel not unlike the Steve Miller Band with a couple more excursions into reggae. It's also mainly covers with Robert only having a writing credit on three tracks. There was one single a cover of the calypso tune of uncertain origin "Man Smart Woman Smarter" re-worked as a white reggae number. It was his first real hit in the US peaking at number 63 while the album reached 68. Despite the single doing nothing here the album made a one week showing at number 46 indicating that a UK fanbase was growing ( although his next one didn't chart ).
Robert then relocated to Nassau in the Bahamas. Quite how he managed this before selling many records has always been a bit of a mystery to me.
"Every Kinda People" was the lead single for his fourth album "Double Fun" . It was written though not released by ex-Free bassist and closet gay Andy Fraser ( who passed away six weeks ago ) . Robert got to hear it and put his own stamp on the song with a calypso keyboard hook, a nifty horn break from the Brecker Brothers, a superb bassline from Motown's Bob Babbitt and an absolutely peerless vocal. Robert's world-weary emoting underlines every line in Fraser's prescient plea for tolerance and diversity.
The song's low placing here - it reached 16 in the US and number 6 in France - despite copious airplay is an enduring mystery. In fact despite its quality no one has succeeded in making the song a big hit here ; Robert's rather redundant 1992 re-working is still the most successful version in chart terms.
I can remember the song, presumably in it's re-recorded version, being on the radio a lot when I was a kid, so I'm surprised it charted so low.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I've never really dived into Palmer's work. I know all the big singles from the radio or whatever, but never felt the need to buy anything. He has a great voice, no doubt, but perhaps a touch too MOR for me - though it explains his success in the States, presumably.