Tracks 5 and 6 from Some People Can Do What They Like (1976)

Tracks 7 and 8 from Double Fun (1978)

Tracks 16 and 17 from Riptide (1985)

I was a kid in the '80s when Robert Palmer reached the height of his fame with those iconic videos for "Addicted To Love," "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On," and "Simply Irresistible" featuring Palmer singing in front of a backing band of glamorous models. It surprised me later to learn that he'd had a long career full of different sounds before that, and I suppose it's kind of a shame that this chameleonic journeyman is now remembered as kind of a one trick pony. 

Robert Palmer was born in Yorkshire, England and started out his recording career singing blues and soul with the bands The Alan Brown Set and Vinegar Joe before launching a solo career. And Palmer became the kind of British musician with heavily American influences who often lived and recorded here and tended to sell more records in the U.S. and the UK. In the '70s Palmer worked with Little Feat, The Meters, and Bernard Purdie, and recorded several Allen Toussaint songs. In the '80s, he wrote songs with Gary Numan and recorded with Chris Frantz of Talking Heads and Adrian Belew. Palmer also regularly covered Husker Du's "New Day Rising" in concert at the height of his fame in 1986-87, which is pretty cool. 

Little Feat are one of my all time favorite bands, and I always love finding the many '70s albums by other artists that feature members of the band and covers of their songs, including Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt, and Nicolette Larson. And there's probably no solo artist who made quite as much music with Little Feat as Robert Palmer -- members of the band are all over his first four albums, which contain covers of the Little Feat songs "Sailin' Shoes," "Trouble," and "Spanish Moon" (there's also a demo of Palmer singing "Willin'" on a later reissue). Pressure Drop was recorded at Blue Seas Studios in Maryland, the place where my dad met Little Feat when they were recording Feats Don't Fail Me Now. I believe Ben Fong-Torres's Little Feat book mentions that Palmer was one of the singers the band talked about as bringing in as their new frontman when they reunited in the late '80s. Palmer also co-wrote "Blackmail" with Lowell George, and on one of Palmer's final albums, he covered the Lowell George solo track "Twenty Million Things." 

Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley's title track, penned by Allen Toussaint, was the album's only single. But the first three tracks on the album ("Sailin' Shoes," "Hey Julia," and "Sneakin' Sally") run together as a continuous suite, and many AOR radio stations have played all three tracks like it's one long song. "River Boat" and "Night People" are a couple of my other favorite Palmer recordings of Toussaint songs. 

Robert Palmer had recorded 8 albums for Island Records with only moderate commercial success when he suddenly became a bona fide pop star at the age of 36. In 1985, Palmer joined the supergroup The Power Station with members of Duran Duran and Chic, and The Power Station's debut was quickly followed by Palmer's biggest solo album Riptide. In a little over a year, Palmer sang on four top 10 hits. Palmer made a few albums after Heavy Nova, and not all of them are on streaming services today, but he seemed to live a pretty good life as an established star before dying of a heart attack in 2003. It's sad that he didn't live to see an older age, I think he would've continued sounding great and making some interesting records. 

Robert Palmer wrote "Addicted To Love," "Simply Irresistible," and "Jack and Mary," but the majority of his best known songs were written by other people, and he definitely gets far more praise for his vocals than his writing. But Palmer was a really talented all-around musician and writer who played guitar, bass, percussion, keyboards, and marimba on some of his records and wrote excellent songs including "Some People Can Do What They Like," "Sulky Girl," "Want You More," "Flesh Wound," "Disturbing Behavior," "More Than Ever," Your Mother Should Have Told You," "Chance," "Honeymoon," and "Where Can It Go?"