From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc
Subject: WHO IS THE BOSS (actually, a Robert Palmer review....)
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:00:40 GMT
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

Recreational director netgod Ray Shea writes:
>Awright!  Amaretto Chocolate Soldiers for everyone!

And as long as we're on confections which are delightful in smaller
doses but whose surfeit might leave one a little queasy....

Robert Palmer "Ridin' High" [EMI 0777 7 98923-2 7]

I am seldom in the habit of buying recordings merely on the strength
of someone's *dislike*, but I suppose that this one would, indeed, fit
that category. Whilst grazing in the used bins at one of my favorite
local emporiums, a shining example of America's youth stormed into the
place, board under arm, and wanted to sell the new Robert Palmer because
"It Blew Chunks." When pressed further, the young man opined that it 
"didn't rock" and that it was "fuckin' elevator music." 

Well - as you can imagine, my ears pricked *right* up at this bit of
criticism. Could Mr. Palmer be doing something besides uptempo crunchin'
guitar tunes for the next Pepsi commercials this time out? (he's lost
to Eddie and his VanCompatriots, it would appear).

So I scoped the disc out. what initially looked like a smeary printing
job on the front and back covers turned out instead to be a sort of
stab at quoting from Salvador Dali's portrait of Mae West. A couple of
points for that. So we've got Bobby on the cover, looking like he's
caught in mid-shrug with this white lounge lizard's coat on and his
best "happy-go-lucky Pepsi grin on. Is this an apolgetic smile? Then
I get a gander at the song list. Yikes! Our young man seems to have
accidentally bought an album of his grandpa's favorite songs (maybe
his dad if he was a late-in-life sort-of unplanned kid). And, since
his horizon seems to stretch about from Seattle to the first of the
channel islands, I suppose I can understand the young man's discomfort.
So I bought it from him. He thought I was "fuckin' nuts". I got a bargain.

This tendency to cover older work from a similar era is a larger part
of Palmer's tendency to hunt up cool covers, but going back *this* far
is a little unusual - the first big band hit that I can think of is the 
Patti Page cover on "Pride". And, more recently, the ah...wildly eclectic
Palmer outing "Don't Explain" had him co-writing with the diVinyls,
covering Dylan with UB40, and still having room for Mose Allison and
Billie Holiday (with some success, actually). So, I think, *why not?*
Palmer's last album "Don't Explain" certainly hints at it (three cuts
from it are, in fact, reprised here here. Of them, only "Aeroplane"
has been seriously altered - they removed the electronics - if at all).

Like a handful of popular singers (let's say, Paul Rodgers and Rod Stewart
in their salad days as examples here), I've always liked Palmer for his
almost uncanny ability to conform his phrasing to the demands at hand.
Unlike Rodgers or Stewart, Palmer has been absolutely fearless when it
comes to wading in someone else's waters. I'd love to have heard Rodgers 
wrap himself around a ballad. The upshot of this fearlessness is the side 
effect of RP making what can be wildly eclectic (some would say uneven)
records. While I said really complementary things about the kind of
organization and sensibility that RP managed to pull off in his "Addictions"
compilations, His last disc "Don't Explain" was, to date, the most 
outrageous mix of work. Essentially, "Ridin' High" takes the traditional
big-band and samba flavored work from that album and heads off in that
direction with positive ferocity. The result is interesting in terms of
what Palmer covers (as usual), what arrangements seem to suit his 
voice, and what music he seems most genuinely comfortable with.

So, what to we wind up with? And (in my case), what versions of these
tunes did I learn to sing along to (we pause here to call my younger
brother Mark on the phone, who's unaccountably the family expert on big
band stuff) with? I add the "source" notations for the interest of the
serious rec.music.misc dweebs who can correct me:

Love Me or Leave Me (Doris Day, and maybe Ruth Edding?)
Love is the Tender Trap (Debbie Reynolds, Sinatra)
Your My Thrill (Billie Holiday)
Want You More (a Palmer original)
Baby, It's Cold Outside (Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Jordan)
Aeroplane (a Palmer original)
Witchcraft (Frankie Laine. Sinatra maybe?)
What a Little Moonlight Can Do (Billie Holiday)
Don't Explain (Billie Holiday)
Chance (a Palmer original)
Goody Goody (Johnny Mercer)
Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me (Duke + Patti Page(?))
Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller and Lena Horne)
No Not Much (Four Lads)
Ridin' High (Ethel Merman)
Hard Head (Name your bluesman. I can't and keep coming up with British
bands doing sloppy covers on 70s live discs.)

Given the list of standard performances to measure up to, this disc
must have taken some serious amount of courage or lack of ego. 
But homage might be a genuine motive; Malta's favorite son spent many of his
formative hours woodshedding with Elkie Brooks in the Brit band 
Vinegar Joe, a band with no small interest in R&B. And, given all the 
Billie Holiday and Ella/Duke stuff here, it seems possible.  But hey -
compared to Sinead O'Connor's recent foray into the field, this is
a whopping success (at least the band arrangements crackle with a bit
more energy). Do the arrangements measure up to that gorgeous bed of
quivery stuff and angel trombones the late Nelson Riddle conjured up
for Linda Ronstadt? Nope. However, the simpler and more intimate 
arrangements *are* very nice (Don't Explain, You're My Thrill, Chance
and Want You More). 

I know what you're wondering:  

Can RP handle "Love is the Tender Trap" better than Debbie Reynolds?
Non problemo est. Better than Sinatra? Well.... Probably not.

Ditto for "Witchcraft." The version we had at my house while I was
growing up was (I think) Frankie Laine, and it would appear that when
he's stuck, RP opts for "chameleon mode" which give us a whole 'nother
bunch of questions.

He seems to cleave a bit toward some of the odder tempos, preferring to
take "Honeysuckle Rose" at the slower and smokier tempo that Lena Horne
ran rather than Fats Waller's tempo.

Also, he's more comfortable (unsurprisingly) with the tempos that swing
less and vamp harder, and right at home when he can push his ballads
into the samba/bossa nova territories.

Heavy melisma territory. He doesn't punch "Ridin' High" like Ethel 
Merman, preferring instead to slither around the uptempo wall of
punchy horns and reeds. 

"Baby It's Cold Outside" enlists the skills of one-third of Wilson
Phillips - specifically, Carnie Wilson. It's certainly interesting to
hear Ms. Wilson out there in the mix without a net, and she really
acquits herself quite well; I think that she handles the "repartee" 
portion of the tune better than Mr. Palmer. Some listeners may find
the technique of banishing each individual voice to the far reaches
of the track to be somewhat distracting. And, as is the case with his
earlier hits such as the cover of "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On", a 
good deal of this tune is played with at least one eyebrow arched.

"Hard Head" brings Johnny Winter and his guitar out for a solid bit
of sexist workout in spades. Winter hardly gets to play guitar as
anything more than a sideman (you just wish they'd turn down the
darned horns for maybe 4 bars and let the guy solo), but he certainly
does some wonderful shouting on the "hard HEAD" portion of the chorus.
We are probably expected to believe that Palmer's rolling his eyes and
winking at us all the way through this growly reading of the tune.

If you're into authenticity, the recent Tony Bennett disc of Frank
Sinatra covers within the confines of the traditional jazz trio or
quartet will, I think, be more to your liking. But I was really 
surprised at the pieces that worked; surprised enough to sit through
the caterwauling intro to "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" for the 
Holiday covers. I also think that re-examining his originals on this
disc was also a good move for Palmer; they're *very* nice.

Oh yeah - one other little wierd factoid: He's got the legendary
Teo Macero doing the co-production work. The sound is magnificent.

Will this go on the road? To supper clubs? Is he still covering 
Motorhead tunes live? Who knows?
--
I chose the perspectiveless, tall nonsense of God's noise aloft over the jagged
parish, thinking everything else was a dream too lonely for words. It was, but 
just as lonely is praying that all wives return, all dogs live.  Eternity takes
up all the room in the world. You can't drive fast enough./G.Taylor/608-828-3385