ROBERT PALMER: PRIDE & PREJUDICE
Them out of town, me out of luck.
It was a case for the toughest and the best. They were both out of town, so CREEM sent me instead.
Them out of town, me out of luck. Robert Palmer was the guy they wanted me to track down and shake up, a guy reputedly harder to read than an eye chart after an all-night neck with a whiskey bottle. An ambiguous question about an ambiguous guy: what was behind the Mr. Normal number? What was the mystery?
I was looking for dirt more personal and pertinent. Did the guy ever sweat? It had been eight albums for the smoothie, each one bringing in more greenbacks than the one before it. Italy and Spain still loved him hardest, but the fame oozed farther westward every year. In no picture, video or apocryphal tale had I ever heard that this GQ refugee perspired. It was a question worth putting on my trenchcoat for.