Robert Palmer

Robert Palmer spent the eighties turning up on television in a fitted suit, a tie and perfect hair, standing still in the centre of the frame while five identical models pretended to play around him. That image made him enormous and then it ate everything else. Underneath the suit there was a singer raised in Malta listening to soul on the radio of an American military base, a guy who got off a supergroup just before Live Aid and who won two Grammys, not one. The suit was not who he was. It was what he put on over the top.

A boy in Malta with American radio

He was born on 19 January 1949 in Batley, in Yorkshire, but the fact that explains his music is another one: his father was posted in Malta and he lived there until he was twelve. The American forces radio on the island broadcast soul and R&B, and that is what he heard as a kid. When it was later said that he had an ear with no nationality, the explanation was not mystical. It was geographical.

Across his career he sang soul, rock, reggae, funk, new wave and blues without any of them being too big for him or feeling borrowed. It is worth sorting out two credits that tend to be attributed wrongly: "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)", which everyone takes to be his, was written by Moon Martin; "Addicted to Love", on the other hand, he did write.

The supergroup he got off

In 1985 he put together The Power Station with John and Andy Taylor, of Duran Duran, and Tony Thompson, the drummer from Chic, with Bernard Edwards — also from Chic — producing. On paper it was an obvious commercial move: the biggest pop group of the moment plus the rhythm section that had defined disco, and Palmer as singer.

It worked, and then he did something almost nobody does: he got off before the tour and before Live Aid. Michael Des Barres replaced him. Which means he gave up walking onto the most watched stage of the decade when he had already won the job. The impassive character of the videos was a construction; the decision to leave when the project no longer interested him was the guy's truth.

The video that ate the song

"Addicted to Love" came out in 1986 and the video was directed by Terence Donovan, a fashion photographer. The five models are styled in the image of Patrick Nagel's paintings: lacquered black hair, whitest skin, red lips, an expression that never changes. And there is a production detail that almost nobody knows: five real musicians were hired to play off camera, and the models copied their movements. The synchrony that looks like mannequins is in fact rehearsed mimicry of people who did know how to play.

The song had another life before that one. It was originally recorded as a duet with Chaka Khan, and her voice was erased because her record label would not allow her to appear on an Island record. The absolute hit we know is therefore an emergency version of something else.

The craft was recognised twice, not once. He won the 1987 Grammy for best male rock vocal performance for "Addicted to Love", and won it again in 1989 for "Simply Irresistible", which on top of that repeated the visual format of the models and turned it into a registered trademark.

He died on 26 September 2003 in Paris, of a heart attack, at the age of 54. He was in a room at the Hotel Warwick, on a two-day break he had taken after recording in London. Nothing like a long farewell: a man in the middle of work, in a hotel room, on an ordinary Tuesday.

What to remember

Robert Palmer won two Grammys, wrote "Addicted to Love" but not "Bad Case of Loving You", and learned to sing listening to American soul in Malta before he turned twelve. He was the singer of The Power Station and got off the project before the tour and before Live Aid. None of those facts fits in the picture of the gentleman in a suit with his band of models, and all of them are more interesting than it is.

The image that made him famous is the only part of his work that was not his: somebody else directed it, the models' look came from a third party's illustrations and the movements were invented by five musicians who never appeared on screen. That is what makes the label of "the most elegant man in rock" unfair. The wrapping was celebrated for twenty years. What was inside — an ear formed thousands of kilometres from his home and the habit of leaving when he was no longer interested — is the story that counts.

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Sources

Robert Palmer (Robert Allen Palmer) was born on 19 January 1949 in Batley, England, and was raised in Malta until the age of twelve, where he listened to soul and R&B on the radio of the American armed forces stationed on the island. A singer of versatile range, he took on soul, rock, funk, reggae, new wave and blues. "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)" was written by Moon Martin; "Addicted to Love" is a composition by Palmer himself. In 1985 he was part of the supergroup The Power Station alongside John Taylor and Andy Taylor, of Duran Duran, and Tony Thompson, of Chic, with production by Bernard Edwards; Palmer left the project before the tour and before the Live Aid performance, and was replaced by Michael Des Barres. The video for "Addicted to Love" (1986) was directed by Terence Donovan, with five models styled in the likeness of Patrick Nagel's illustrations; for the shoot five musicians were hired to play the instruments off camera, so that the models could reproduce their movements. The song was initially recorded as a duet with Chaka Khan, whose voice was removed because her record company did not authorise her appearance on an Island Records release. Palmer won two Grammy Awards for best male rock vocal performance: in 1987 for "Addicted to Love" and in 1989 for "Simply Irresistible". He died on 26 September 2003 in Paris, of a heart attack, at the age of 54, in his room at the Hotel Warwick, during a two-day break following a recording session in London. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from BBC News, Rolling Stone, The Independent, Billboard, Wikipedia and other coverage.