ARCHIVE
ROBERT PALMER
The Island Years 1974-1985 EDSEL/DEMON 8/10
Rock, pop, soul, funk, reggae: a musical Zelig reappraised
REDISCOVERED
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked
Top hole: Palmer at the Holiday Star Theater, Merrillville, Indiana, May 1986
PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES
ROBERT PALMER, who died 20 years ago, aged only 54, was a Zelig-like figure in pop history, someone whose musical life intersected with everyone from Elkie Brooks to Gary Numan, from Little Feat to Duran Duran, Chic to Talking Heads, The Meters to UB40, the Brecker Brothers to Chaka Khan. In the popular consciousness he’ll forever be the sleazeball crooner in Terence Donovan’s oft-parodied video for “Addicted To Love”, backed by a band of identically clad female models. But this nine-disc boxset of his 11 years at Island Records puts a strong case that Palmer was Yorkshire’s own answer to Hall & Oates or Bobby Caldwell: the quintessence of “blue-eyed soul”, though his “soul” incorporated everything from Allen Toussaint to Jam & Lewis. He also fits neatly into that lineage of white Brits – Ken Colyer, Alexis Korner, Eric Burdon, Chris Blackwell – who almost became custodians of African-American music.