It was 1999, and for most people, Robert Palmer was a cultural footnote, the guy from the ‘80s videos, forever wearing sharp suits while mannequin-like ladies mimed and jiggled behind him. He was four years away from dying way too young at 54 years of age, but his at-that-point moribund career had preceded his physical demise, as his first solo album in a half-decade, entitled Rhythm & Blues, came and went without much notice or fanfare. No hits, no videos of note, just a record on a tiny label distributed by a reissue arm of a multinational company about to get kneecapped by technological innovation. In other words, blip and blink.
The reviews -- that is, what reviews were generated -- didn't help, either: “…not groundbreaking or particularly innovative” said Dave Kendrick of the Hartford Courant (in an otherwise positive blurb at the time of the album’s release), and “there is neither actual rhythm nor blues on or anywhere around this album (except perhaps the blues felt by fans who bought it)” opined Jeff Giles for PopDose, writing in a Palmer retrospective. AllMusic.com gave it 2 of a possible 5 stars, too. I’m not here to redeem this album – Giles called it Palmer’s only bad album, and I would agree, so long as the ill-fated Living In Fear by The Power Station is not part of the discussion – but I do find some charms in it, or at least what Palmer was trying to do.
At heart, Robert Palmer came out of the blues shouter tradition, which you can hear on his early work with Vinegar Joe in the '70s. Over time, of course, it’s only natural for someone of that background to slide into smoother R&B crooning, which you can hear on his choice of ‘80s covers from R&B artists like Kool & The Gang, Cherrelle, The System, and *ahem* Gary Numan, so it stands to reason that, later in his career when he’d zigged all his zags, he’d want to try a proper R&B album. The major problem was that lots of R&B in the ‘90s was a symphony in a box, with synthesizers and drum machines replacing cool cats in a small room. And without the intuitive feel and swing of live players, the sonic accoutrements often render the material distant and sterile, which handcuffed new potentially solid material like “True Love” and “You’re Not The Only One” (and turned fresh takes on Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Palmer’s “Work To Make It Work” into stillborn lumps).
The clear highlight of Rhythm & Blues -- in fact, one of the strongest performances of Palmer's spotty '90s output -- is the last song on the album, a cover of Little Feat’s “Twenty Million Things.” Where the rest of the album is stuffed to the digital gills, "Twenty Million Things" is stripped down to the bare bones of piano and the world-weary longing of Palmer’s melody and harmony vocals, an acoustic dream of what could have been. Here's the original version, followed by a live performance from Palmer (and Jools Holland) that is even better than the take on Rhythm & Blues:
Four years later, Palmer followed the lead of “Twenty Million Things” and released a powerful and emotive album of covers entitled Blues that, with his death in September 2003, became his last officially released musical statement. And while I love Blues, like I love much of Palmer's peripatetic output, I like to think of his passing with "Twenty Million Things" in the background as I reflect on what his work has meant to me over the decades, as I get closer to outliving the man himself. "I'd love to stay and stick around," Palmer might say, "but I've got twenty million things to do."
The reviews -- that is, what reviews were generated -- didn't help, either: “…not groundbreaking or particularly innovative” said Dave Kendrick of the Hartford Courant (in an otherwise positive blurb at the time of the album’s release), and “there is neither actual rhythm nor blues on or anywhere around this album (except perhaps the blues felt by fans who bought it)” opined Jeff Giles for PopDose, writing in a Palmer retrospective. AllMusic.com gave it 2 of a possible 5 stars, too. I’m not here to redeem this album – Giles called it Palmer’s only bad album, and I would agree, so long as the ill-fated Living In Fear by The Power Station is not part of the discussion – but I do find some charms in it, or at least what Palmer was trying to do.
At heart, Robert Palmer came out of the blues shouter tradition, which you can hear on his early work with Vinegar Joe in the '70s. Over time, of course, it’s only natural for someone of that background to slide into smoother R&B crooning, which you can hear on his choice of ‘80s covers from R&B artists like Kool & The Gang, Cherrelle, The System, and *ahem* Gary Numan, so it stands to reason that, later in his career when he’d zigged all his zags, he’d want to try a proper R&B album. The major problem was that lots of R&B in the ‘90s was a symphony in a box, with synthesizers and drum machines replacing cool cats in a small room. And without the intuitive feel and swing of live players, the sonic accoutrements often render the material distant and sterile, which handcuffed new potentially solid material like “True Love” and “You’re Not The Only One” (and turned fresh takes on Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Palmer’s “Work To Make It Work” into stillborn lumps).
The clear highlight of Rhythm & Blues -- in fact, one of the strongest performances of Palmer's spotty '90s output -- is the last song on the album, a cover of Little Feat’s “Twenty Million Things.” Where the rest of the album is stuffed to the digital gills, "Twenty Million Things" is stripped down to the bare bones of piano and the world-weary longing of Palmer’s melody and harmony vocals, an acoustic dream of what could have been. Here's the original version, followed by a live performance from Palmer (and Jools Holland) that is even better than the take on Rhythm & Blues:
Four years later, Palmer followed the lead of “Twenty Million Things” and released a powerful and emotive album of covers entitled Blues that, with his death in September 2003, became his last officially released musical statement. And while I love Blues, like I love much of Palmer's peripatetic output, I like to think of his passing with "Twenty Million Things" in the background as I reflect on what his work has meant to me over the decades, as I get closer to outliving the man himself. "I'd love to stay and stick around," Palmer might say, "but I've got twenty million things to do."
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