Robert Palmer

Robert Allen Palmer (19 January 1949 – 26 September 2003) was an English singer and songwriter. He was known for his powerful and soulful voice, sartorial elegance, and stylistic explorations, combining soul, funk, jazz, rock, pop, reggae, and blues. His 1986 song "Addicted to Love" and its accompanying video came to "epitomise the glamour and excesses of the 1980s".

Having begun in the music industry in the 1960s, Palmer had a spell with Vinegar Joe in the 1970s and then found success in the 1980s. It came both in his solo career and with the Power Station, scoring Top 10 hits in the United Kingdom and the United States. Three of his hit singles, including "Addicted to Love", featured music videos directed by British fashion photographer Terence Donovan.

Palmer received a number of awards throughout his career, including two Grammy Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance and an MTV Video Music Award. He was also nominated for the Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist in both 1987 and 1989. He died at the age of 54 from a heart attack.

Palmer was born in 1949 in Batley. When he was only a few months old, he and his family moved to Malta, where his father worked in British naval intelligence. He was influenced as a child by blues, soul, and jazz music played on American Forces Radio and by his parents' musical tastes. His family returned to the UK when he was 12.

In his teens, Palmer moved to Scarborough. He joined his first band, the Mandrakes, at the age of 15 while still at Scarborough High School for Boys. He left school the next year, after obtaining six O-levels and briefly studied art at Scarborough School of Art & Design, before landing a job at the Scarborough Evening News. He was reportedly fired after police found "the stub of a cannabis joint in a raid on his bedsit".

Palmer's first major break came with the departure of singer Jess Roden from the band the Alan Bown Set in 1969, after which Palmer was invited to London to sing on the band's single "Gypsy Girl". The vocals for the album The Alan Bown!, originally recorded by Roden (and released in the US that way), were re-recorded by Palmer after the success of the single. According to music journalist Paul Lester, Palmer rose from northern clubs in England to become "elegant and sophisticated" and the master of several styles.

In 1970, he joined the 12-piece jazz-rock fusion band Dada, which featured singer Elkie Brooks and her husband Pete Gage. After a year, Palmer, Brooks, and Gage formed soul/rock band Vinegar Joe. Palmer played rhythm guitar in the band and shared lead vocals with Brooks. Signed to the Island Records label, the band released three albums: Vinegar Joe (1972), Rock 'n' Roll Gypsies (1972), and Six Star General (1973), before disbanding in March 1974. Brooks later said Palmer "was a very good-looking guy", and that female fans were happy to find that Brooks and Palmer were not romantically linked.

Island Records signed Palmer to a solo deal in 1974. His first solo album, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, recorded in 1974 in New Orleans was heavily influenced by the music of Little Feat and the funk fusion of the Meters, who acted as the backing band along with producer/guitarist Lowell George of Little Feat. Unsuccessful in the UK, both the album and single reached the top 100 in the US. Notably, "Sailin' Shoes" (the album's first track, and a Little Feat cover), Palmer's own "Hey Julia" and the Allen Toussaint-penned title track carry virtually the same rhythm, and were packaged on the album as a "trilogy" without a pause between them.