Robert Palmer - Murderess
Let's interrupt the Jazz fare with a milestone birthday for someone who's dead over 20 years, yet still seems culturally ubiquitous somehow.
He began as the Seventies did, in a sorta Prog-Soul-Blues-Rock amalgam called Vinegar Joe, who had recorded an album under another name right before he joined.
After three albums with them that went next to nowhere, they broke up and he went solo, as so many refugees from bands do.
He started to make solo albums in the mid 1970s, gradually building an audience with his evolving brand of soulful rock and funk.
For a couple of these records, he was even backed by The Meters, as funkified a New Orleans outfit as shall e're be.
As the Eighties began and MTV started, he began to have minor hits in the charts and move towards a kind of sophisticated, gentlemanly persona and image, which would really start to flourish and become iconic as the decade progressed.
Then -- after a splashy stint in a supergroup -- he dropped his 1985 platter, called Riptide, and folks began to get, well... addicted.
This album's several #1 singles propelled him into the ionosphere, and -- after 15 years at it -- he immediately became a global superstar.
More records and more hits followed until he died too young, in 2003.
I probably lean towards the music of Robert Palmer in his pre-glory days, with songs like Clues and Johnny and Mary, and of course his classic, hit version of Moon Martin's Bad Case of Loving You.
But it's the 1986 sold-out tour for Riptide that we visit on this, what would have been the man's 75th b'day, for this wild concert I have refurbished from an uncirculated, 1st gen FM source.
Robert Palmer
Open Air Theatre
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA
7.26.1986
01 Monogamy
02 Discipline of Love
03 Communication
04 Every Kinda People
05 Dance for Me
06 Tell Me I'm Not Dreaming
07 What's It Take
08 I Didn't Mean to Turn You On
09 Murderess
10 Woke Up Laughing
11 Stupid Cupid
12 Shoot the Moon
13 Pride
14 Riptide
15 Get It Through Your Heart
16 Save Your Love (For Your #1)
17 Johnny & Mary
18 Some Like It Hot
19 You Are In My System
20 Planet of Women
21 New Day Rising/Jealous
22 Flesh Wound
23 Addicted to Love
24 Hyperactive
25 Bad Case of Loving You
26 No, Not Much
Total time: 1:36:44
disc break goes after Track 13
Robert Palmer - vocals
Eddie Martinez - guitar & vocals
Frank Blair - bass & vocals
Dony Wynn - drums
Sally Ven-Yu Berg - drums, percussion & vocals
Alan Mansfield - keyboards & guitar
Julie Homi - keyboards & vocals
Kit McClure - clarinet, saxophone, flute & vocals
B.J. Nelson - vocals & percussion
1st gen off-air cassettes of the original live Westwood One broadcast, at some point transferred to MiniDisc
edited, retracked, repaired and remastered by EN, January 2024
674 MB FLAC/direct link
674 MB FLAC/direct link
I understand that the pre-FM source for the majority of this performance circulates, but to be honest the mix for the later rebroadcasts of this sounded dull and empty to me, and attempts to remaster it fell flat.
This live mix, done on the fly as the whole show went out over the Westwood One network, blows it clean off the airwaves in my opinion, so it's this, largely uncirculated FM tape on which I chose to work.
Anyway I shall return with two more missives for the month, but I hope you enjoy what I've done with this one, all in honor of Robert Palmer's 75th birthday today. And if not? No offense: I didn't mean to turn you on!--J.
1.19.1949 - 9.26.2003