Considered by many the pioneer of rock n roll drumming, this jazz-loving stickman played on lots of important sessions in a variety of genres first recording in New Orleans and later Los Angeles
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/3042987/Earl-Palmer.html
Earl Palmer, who died on Friday aged 84, was a session drummer whose subtle pioneering backbeats featured on many of the R&B classics of his day.
An ever-adaptable, jazz-rooted drummer esteemed by Shelly Manne and Charlie Watts, Palmer made a distinctive contribution to innumerable records, among them Nat Cole's Ramblin' Rose, Little Richard's Tutti Frutti, Elvis Costello's King of America, the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' and Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High.
Other artists who used him were the Beach Boys, Neil Young, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and Barbra Streisand. He also contributed to a number of film soundtracks, such as In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Bullitt (1968).
Palmer was respected not just for his skills as a drummer but also for the fact that he was never fazed by the exalted company in which he found himself. After all, he had a fair claim to be among the inventors of rock 'n' roll.
Earl Palmer was born on October 25 1924 in the Tremé district of New Orleans. His mother, a touring singer, had apparently become pregnant in Manhattan by a whaling ship's cook who then died in an accident at sea; another theory had it that his father was the pianist and bandleader Fats Pichon.
As a boy Earl relished the marching bands that accompanied the funerals in New Orleans. From the age of five he had a tap dancing act – accompanied by his mother on the road in Ida Cox's Darktown Scandals Revue, he came to realise that a sudden influx of "aunts" consisted of his mother's lesbian lovers. New Orleans was tough, and Palmer remembered seeing two women take knives to one another; meanwhile, "a top pimp wasn't an outcast, he was a big shot".
Brought up a Roman Catholic, Earl served as an altar boy. "That's where I learned to drink. The father turned me on to wine, man." No wonder that he could say of sitting on Bessie Smith's lap: "I smelled booze all over her but I was used to it".
During the Second World War Palmer set aside his ambition to play saxophone and clarinet to serve his country in the US Army, where he claimed that racism was rife. After supplying his men with live ammunition for the purpose of self-defence, he was demoted from sergeant. He was sent to England, and by Christmas 1944 he was under fire in a foxhole at Malmédy.
After the war Palmer returned to New Orleans, where he whiled away some time boxing, playing pool and working in a tailoring business. He also took up drumming, and soon came to the conclusion that by making music he might be in a position to buy fine suits rather than being the one who made them. He enrolled at Grunewald's Music School, and this led to his joining Dave Bartholomew's band, with which he worked on Fats Domino's early recordings.
Palmer later recalled, however: "The first time I felt like a page was being turned was Little Richard. It wasn't quality music. It wasn't no chords, it was just blues. Slippin' and Slidin' sounded like Good Golly Miss Molly, and they both sounded like Lucille. It was exciting because he was exciting."
On one occasion Palmer went backstage to see Shelly Manne, to find his way barred by a doorman who kept telling him: "Nigger, didn't I tell you to get back?" When the white drummer emerged, he immediately took in what was happening. Although he had never set eyes on Palmer, Manne said: "I was waiting for you. When you get to California, get in touch." (Palmer never forgot that moment and later named one of his daughters Shelly.)
In 1957 Palmer went to Los Angeles, where he reworked Fats Domino numbers with Ricky Nelson as part of an elite array of session musicians which included Leon Russell, Barney Kessel and Glen Campbell, who became best known playing on all of Phil Spector's hits as the "wrecking crew". At one stage Palmer was making an album a day and earning $100,000 a year; for him, You've Lost That Loving' Feelin' was one session among thousands – and it was a session that would have been shorter, he reflected, had Phil Spector been able to notate music. As for Tina Turner, Palmer's abiding memory was: "I've always been a leg man, and this woman had legs."
By the early 1970s work was harder to come by. Bands tended to be more sufficient unto themselves, and his life – and finances – crumbled when his second wife, Susan Weidenpesch, died from breast cancer. Palmer kept the spirit, however, returning to small-club jazz, and he was sought out by artists such as Elvis Costello.
Palmer published a memoir, Backbeat, in 1999. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. According to the institution's website, Little Richard described him in his autobiography as "probably the greatest session drummer of all time".
Earl Palmer had three sons and four daughters by his first three marriages. He married his fourth wife, Jeline, in 2004.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 September 2008 13:13 (seventeen years ago)