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The critic Robert Palmer never would have been confused with the sex-symbol rock star of the ‘80s who shared his name. The writer was a slight, quiet Southerner with a myopic, somewhat mole-like aspect; you can see him in action in Robert Mugge's 1991 film Deep Blues, which was based on Palmer's classic 1982 study. The only time I met him, when we served on a panel together at Austin's South By Southwest Music Conference in the early ‘90s, his great stillness impressed me.
Music impelled all his work, and filled his soul. He toted up quite a résumé before his premature death at 52 in 1997, from hepatitis C contracted in the course of his long-term drug addiction. Born in Arkansas, he moved north in the ‘60s and made two albums as saxophonist and clarinetist with the arty New York rock band Insect Trust; later in life, he would journey to Morocco with jazz revolutionary Ornette Coleman to record with the Master Musicians of Jajouka (of whom more later). He served as the first full-time rock critic for the New York Times for 12 years (but he wrote about a great deal more than rock). He authored several books, including the descriptively titled Rock & Roll: An Unruly History, a delectably idiosyncratic overview. He produced brilliant albums by the bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside for Mississippi's Fat Possum Records, and co-directed a documentary film about John Coltrane.
Palmer's enduring reputation rests upon his scholarly and penetrating criticism and journalism, and his scattered work for the Times, Rolling Stone, and other outlets has finally been thoughtfully collected by Anthony DeCurtis in the very welcome Blue & Chaos.
Palmer could write with rare clarity and eloquence about just about any style of music you can think of. He loved the funky stuff. He was among the best writers anywhere on the blues, as pieces here on such diverse figures as Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Robert Pete Williams, Muddy Waters, and Lightnin' Hopkins demonstrate. He was completely at home with the R&B of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and the "5" Royales and the primordial rock of Bo Diddley and Jerry Lee Lewis. His great grasp of technique and his ability to illuminate complex music for the layman come through in pieces about jazzmen like Charles Mingus and Sun Ra and modern minimalist composer-musicians like LaMonte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass.
He wrote sympathetically about such classic rock icons as The Band, Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and explicated the music of John Lennon and (most especially) his spouse Yoko Ono with understanding and intimacy. He had a fondness for maverick talents, from the Velvet Underground and such punk acts as X and Patti Smith to left-field jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock. He never toed any critical party line: He had harsh words for Bruce Springsteen, an artist almost universally adored by his journalistic peers, and found little of worth in punk godfathers the Ramones.
Palmer gravitated to music that was characterized by wildness, freedom and a certain earthy spirituality. The core of Blues & Chaos is found in a couple of long Rolling Stone pieces, published 18 years apart, about his experiences with the musicians of Jajouka. His empathy with these tribal pipers, who recreated the ancient myths of the god Pan in their keening, percussive music, resulted in his most luminous work. Some of the writing takes the breath away: "Sunlight is pouring down, like the energy that poured into me when the musicians played and I played and we fell through each other, weightless, into the sky."
Music wasn't just something to be listened to for Robert Palmer -- it was a doorway into the divine. This very gifted and sensitive writer's work was fundamentally an attempt to touch the inexplicable, holy thing that sits at music's core.
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