Comments on: Deep Blues: Missing Robert Palmer (A Critical Tribute)

By: Ted Drozdowski

Ted Drozdowski — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:52:18 +0000

I’m not exactly sure why it’s taken me so long to write something here about Bob. I owe him a lot. Today I live in the south because of Bob, and the connections I made with musicians in Mississippi thanks to him took my life on a radically different path than it was on — deeper into a life making music. Anthony DeCurtis’ new collection of Bob’s writing is likely the dam buster. It has caused me to reflect more deeply on my friendship with Bob and on his gifts for the first time in years. I think that Bob’s early departure from life stunned me. And in some ways still does. He had a lot more to offer everyone.
I was a fan before I was a friend. I read Bob in the Times and elsewhere when I was an aspiring music journalist, always inspired and captivated by his ability to relate the specific details of sound — perhaps the most difficult aspect of music writing, but seemingly never a challenge to Bob. Truly, he set the bar for modern music journalism in many ways.
I discovered his book Deep Blues just as I was getting deeply into the genre and — thanks to Bob’s insightful writing — it became my Bible. Occasionally I had the joy of receiving his pristine copy when I was an editor at Musician — always penetrating, funny, revealing, and clean as a diamond.
But we finally met as the Deep Blues movie and soundtrack were being released and immediately hit it off over a mutual mesmerization with Sonny Sharrock, R.L. Burnside, Ornette, Junior Kimbrough, Joy Division, Sonic Youth and more. And within a few hours he was giving me the necessary phone numbers and contacts for traveling to Mississippi and Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint, which at the time was the hottest place for music in Mississippi, and perhaps one of the best spots in the world, even if it was still something of a secret.
Over the next few years my wife Laurie and I were able to spend time with Bob and JoBeth in New Orleans and Boston (where we lived then) and in Mississippi, where I had the joy of spending two weeks with Bob and a slew of Fat Possum artists at a series of amazing recording sessions and ultimately furthering my blues and music education in ways a kid whose family crawled out of the Pennsylvania coal holes had never imagined.
Bob and JoBeth were a great couple, intellectually and emotionally engaged with each other and the world. And while Bob was an intellectual to the bone, he was also down-to-earth and welcoming to absolutely everyone I saw him encounter. There was nothing elitist about Bob. Ever.
I left Bob’s memorial service at Tramp’s in New York City deeply sad, and I still carry some of that sadness. Bob’s world was never small, although I feel the world at large is smaller for his absence. He was a good friend and mentor, he lived life fully if not nearly long enough, and I still miss him and am thankful to have known him. These days I play about eighty shows a year, and in the case that keeps my road Les Paul I carry a sheet with three names that I like to look at for a moment before every gig for reflection and inspiration. One of them is Bob’s. Thanks, man. Wish you were here.

By: Robert Poss

Robert Poss — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:49:31 +0000

Last night at Le Poisson Rouge, Bob lived again.

By: Johnny Lowebow

Johnny Lowebow — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:48:46 +0000

All that knew Bob, really miss him!

By: Southern Roots and Healing: E-mail Interview with Mark Kemp « rockcritics.com

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:56:36 +0000

[...] Hunter S. Thompson. In later years, I positively consumed the writing of Greil Marcus, Legs McNeil, Robert Palmer, Barney Hoskyns, and David Fricke, and in the late ’80s and ’90s, after I began writing [...]

By: Deborah Frost

Deborah Frost — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:24:32 +0000

How can it possibly be 10 years since Robert Palmer shuffled off his coil? What a long strange trip indeed.

By: Roy Trakin

Roy Trakin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:50:29 +0000

Generous to a fault, Robert Palmer walked it like he talked it. I still remember him stumbling into my wedding, Oct. 4, 1981, with his then-girlfriend (were they married at the time?), fellow rock critic Debra Rae Cohen. The two had just come from an all-nighter with Rod Stewart and were still dressed in the clothes from the day before. Robert took out his clarinet and serenaded the crowd from the dance floor, channeling his wild Insect Trust days as people nudged one another and wondered, “Who is that guy?” Well, he’s the rock critic for the New York Times, I laughed. There’s a picture of Bob, instrument in hand, in my wedding book. Aside from his graciousness, great stories and amazing insight as a writer, that is the image I will always hold of him. Playing clarinet at Club El Morocco for my wife Jill and I on our wedding day….