Details are pretty sketchy…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=529&ncid=529&e=1&u=/ap/20030926/ap_en_ot/obit_palmer
Another one? Jesus H. Christ! Addicted to Love is one of the most famous videos on the planet!
Wasn’t the poor auld bastard making a comeback?
Heart attack, in Paris… just like Jim Morrison.
Kind of sad, not a musical icon (like Johnny Cash) or major talent (like Cash and Warren Zevon), but a guy with a good voice and solid, catchy radio friendly songs who had a long career in a business where so few do last for long. Plus he was only 54.
Not to cheapen the man’s death, but are that many more celebrities really dying this year or is our culture just so media saturated that between the various levels of fame one can have and the sheer number of people with enough name recognition among the general public it just seems that way?
widdershins, I had the same thought when deciding whether or not to post this. One could do a little bit of research and count the number of celebrities dying over, say, a 10-year period, but then you’d have to define the criteria that makes someone a celebrity. Someone who was at the height of their fame when they died? Someone whose prime was 20 years or so ago and had long slipped from the public eye? How do you define fame? These are questions I’m not attempting to answer, but given your choices, I’d opt with B). Our culture is so media-saturated that that anything happening to anyone is news-worthy these days. Just my $.02.
i liked Robert Palmer. he was from just down the road from where i come from too.
downer.
I guess I’ll post here (hard to know which of the five Robert Palmer threads to post to).
He’ll probably be remembered as a sharply-dressed singer who fronted a band of leggy babes; after all that’s the image that gave him stardom, top ten songs, and a Pepsi commercial.
And that’s a shame.
I first discovered Robert Palmer in 1974 through his highly entertaining album Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley. What a great record! His band contained members of Little Feat and the Meters, and he covered songs by Lowell George (Sailin’ Shoes) and Allen Toussaint. (Sneakin’ Sally). And sandwiched between those covers was a dandy original song, Hey Julia.
That music was just as funky as it could be, with all the soul of a gumbo swamp. And Palmer’s voice fit that funky sound like a tight glove.
I just checked and see that Sneakin’ Sally… is still in print. Do yourself a favor and check out this album and the subsequent Pressure Drop (1976). You can still enjoy Simply Irresistable and Addicted to Love, but you should know that Palmer was a well-rounded singer.
RIP.
What a bummer. This one is the first of the bunch to really be a shock to me; Johnny and Warren were kinda expected, unfortunately.
What a story too: the critic who became the critiqued. I loved his earlier stuff; “Clues” was such a different sound from what was out there at the time. And his cover of Earl King’s “Trick Bag” was great. And of course the obvious: there will never be a video to surpass “Addicted to Love”.
What a bummer.
At least his music is good, so we can listen to it always. “Addicted To Love” still makes me wanna get funky. (And I’m a die-hard grunge fan.)
Oh man…I was having a scorching affair with a woman 16 years my junior when his music was hot. “Addicted To Love” and “Simply Irresistable” were more than just songs for us. Shit.
That was a different Robert Palmer. That one died back in '97 at the age of 52.
Power Station’s remake of the T Rex classic ‘‘Bang A Gong’’ was one of my favorites. Thanks for the good times, Robert.
I agree, the early Robert Palmer was his best stuff. Blew the doors off his Video Fame period. Sneakin’ is one of my all-time favorite albums. What a drag…
First became aware of him when the radio started playing his cover of “I’ve got it bad ,and I’ve got it good” back in '79 or '80. Don’t know who did the original, but his cover version moved.
I really like him. I have 4 of his albums including the very excellent greatest hits collection.
Didn’t he smoke like a chimney, though?
Labdad wrote
I stand corrected.
Damn shame anyway.
Agree. The man had soul.
Saw him in Tulagi’s in Boulder sometime in the 1970’s, I want to say '74 but I am really not sure.
Those 80’s videos were fun, but they really did not do justice to Robert Palmer the singer-performer.
Sorry. The name of that tune I heard back in 1979 was “Bad Case of Lovin’ You (Doctor, Doctor).”
In honour of the man (and because it’s really getting on my nerves), I would like to point out that one of his most famous (and Grammy-winning) songs is spelled “Simply Irresistible.”
Thank you.