Sideman Spotlight: Earl Palmer

My previous post on Sam Cooke featured a brief aside about drummer Earl Palmer. At the time, I wasn't sure if Palmer manned the kit for "Bring It On Home To Me" ... I since found out it was actually Frank Capp ... but in researching the "did he or didn't he" factotum, I found myself listening to a decent sampling of Palmer's recorded work. Which brings us to today's discussion.

Too often, "greatest ever" musician discussions become a roll call of showoffs and shredders. You know who I'm talking about. The guitar hero who crams 400,000 notes into a 30-second instrumental break or the drummer with the 172-piece kit who is damn well gonna make sure you hear all 172 pieces. Yawn City. These guys are like rocket-armed quarterbacks who'd rather demonstrate arm strength than make good decisions that win games.

"Hey Coach, did you see how far I threw that ball?"
"Very impressive. Too bad I called a screen pass."

To paraphrase from the Book of Watt, ballhogs may get the sexy highlights, but I'll take the tugboats and their service to the song. The sideman aesthetic ... at least in any music this side of post-bop jazz ... is essentially less is more. Less playing, more listening. It's not that sidemen can't solo or be a lead voice, but functionally speaking, their role is that of support. It may be a singer they're supporting, but at the very least a good sideman supports the needs of the song. The best sidemen are not necessarily the fastest or loudest, but they are invariably the best listeners and know when NOT to play. God bless the tugboats. Their sense of economy is a necessary corrective to overrated "squeaky wheel" showoffery.

Incidentally, while there's an operational difference between a sideman and a session man ... a sideman is generally a member of a touring band, while a session man is part of a band only in a studio context ... their roles are fairly similar. In fact, all session men are ad hoc sidemen, but not all sidemen are necessarily session men. Some musicians are both. Clarence White was a session man for years, including early stints with The Byrds. Later, he became a sideman in The Byrds, but also worked as a session man when the band wasn't touring. I know, it's all very complicated. But we're testing on this next week, so please take notes.

This brings us back to the greatness of Earl Palmer. I'm not sure how much touring he did, but his early work in New Orleans as part of Dave Bartholomew's studio band (1947-57) laid the groundwork for rock drumming. In 1957, he moved to Los Angeles, where he continued his prolific session career, playing on approximately 3 billion records. OK, that's a slight overstatement. Regardless, he is certainly one of the "greatest drummers of all-time," but you'd be hard-pressed to find a bona fide solo in his lengthy discography, and you certainly won't hear one today. While I won't go into a full-blown career overview ... mainly because I might run out of internet ... I do want to cover a handful of his career highlights to showcase his versatility and talents in a variety of contexts.

THE SONGS OF EARL PALMER

Fats Domino - The Fat Man - 1949

Sorry about this track's crappy sound (you can't hear Palmer's drums all that well), but a better version doesn't exist. I was on the fence about including it, but it's the first significant recording in Palmer's career, so it's in. It's also Fats Domino's first single and you gotta love his pseudo-trumpet falsetto. It's also significant because, according to Earlpedia, "(Palmer's) playing featured one of the first instances of the back beat that has come to be the most important element in rock and roll. Palmer has said, 'That song required a strong afterbeat throughout the whole piece. With Dixieland you had a strong afterbeat only after you got to the shout (last) chorus. It was sort of a new approach to rhythm music.'"

Little Richard - I Got It - 1956

"I Got It" is an obscurity in the Little Richard catalog, but it's almost identical in structure to classics like "Tutti Frutti" and "Ready Teddy," and I think it better showcases Palmer's talents. The song has Earl punching in on the 2 and 4 (the back beat) while mirroring the bass pulse with quarter notes on the ride cymbal. The tune is vintage Little Richard, but Palmer's fills, accents, stops, and starts ... especially beginning with the first chorus at :47 ... elevate it (and the band) to another level.

Lloyd Price - I'm Glad, Glad - 1956

"Lawdy Miss Clawdy" was more influential, but you won't find another Lloyd Price song with better Palmer. First, you gotta love the rolling intro. Second, after one verse, you hear not only get the hard back beat, but you get that heavy bass drum, New Orleans parade beat turnaround into the second verse. In fact, I've included this song because it's a perfect fusion of Palmer's second line background with rock's big beat future.

Professor Longhair - Tipitina - 1953

I'm going back a few years for a reason. While the Lloyd Price and Little Richard tunes took "The Fat Man's" back beat and ran with it, this Professor Longhair classic stays locked in the New Orleans rhumba/parade tradition. Palmer eschews the cymbals completely in favor of snare and bass syncopations, accenting on the 2, but before the 4. This is straight up, second line marching band fundamentals. The song also demonstrates Palmer's instinctive tugboat mentality, playing with the song's needs in mind. While the Little Richard and Lloyd Price songs required him to push the beat, "Tipitina" needed the drummer to lay back and join the parade.

As a bonus, I found this video footage of Palmer leading a mid-'90s band through "Tipitina." It begins with him explaining the rhythm and his role on the original recording. Earl is joined by famed New Orleanians Allen Touissant on piano and the late "Red" Tyler on saxophone. Please note how Palmer subtly slows the beat when Tyler joins the chorus. While he undoubtedly could've gone faster, Palmer knew that his first job was to support the lead voice. Pure tugboat.



Ritchie Valens - La Bamba - 1958

By the time this song was recorded, Palmer had left the cozy confines of New Orleans for Los Angeles session work. Ritchie Valens' signature tune, "La Bamba," was probably an early challenge for Palmer in LA since it was undoubtedly one of his first encounters with Mexican music. Nevertheless, Palmer is the consummate sideman, effortlessly laying down the beat and embracing Latino flourishes (a woodblock ostinato and conga fills) without being too busy. Totally pro.

Sam Cooke - Rome Wasn't Built In A Day - 1962

Sam Cooke - Shake - 1964

Note: The Sam Cooke legal defense team has removed these mp3s. Contact me by email and I can hit you with the tracks backchannel.

Like I wasn't gonna come back to Sam Cooke. Please. "Rome" has to be one of the most underrated tunes in the Cooke catalog. Sam's smooth croon is, as usual, in top form and the horn charts anticipate much of the work at Stax. But what makes this song move are Palmer's marching band trills, like snare giddyups, throughout the song and the syncopation between his snare and bass drum. Together, they give the tune a unique rhythmic tension, elevating it from generic pop to a soulful R&B/pop fusion.

"Shake" differs markedly from "Rome," let alone so many previous Sam Cooke songs, in its total absence of melody. In that respect, it anticipates much of James Brown's coming music ... if not soul music, in general ... which was driven by rhythm, often disregarding melody entirely. However, Palmer's back beat and fills are the foundation upon which Sam, the horn section, and the rest of the rhythm section spreads out. Also, I do want to say that while "Shake" may have been perfected by Otis Redding (with the great Al Jackson on drums, no less), let's not forget that Sam died before he could answer Otis' gutbucket rendition with his own Harlem Square-esque ministrations. Just sayin.

Lalo Schifrin - Mission: Impossible TV Theme - 1966

Bet you didn't see this one coming. Sho nuff, that's Earl Palmer keeping 5/4 time on Lalo Schifrin's immediately recognizable theme song. Subtle, jazzy, hip ... yep, Earl's involved.

Randy Newman - Sail Away [early version] - 1972

"This was the way I first had the song. Maybe it's better. Milt Holland, Jim Keltner, and Earl Palmer did a great job."
--Randy Newman, from the liner notes to the Sail Away reissue

This version of Randy Newman's ode to the slave ship is remarkable for 2 reasons: 1) No orchestra, which is so familiar to longtime fans, and 2) You can practically hear "Louisiana 1927" clawing its way out, especially with Earl Palmer's marching band drum rolls underneath Newman's piano like a clarion call from Rampart Street. While the released version on Sail Away is a classic for a good reason, this demo is a revelation. And you gotta love the :20 outro, with the polyrhythmic drums probably meant to invoke the chaos of the auction block as the bells eerily stand in for slave chains. Subtle, but powerful.

Tom Waits - Whistlin' Past The Graveyard - 1978

In retrospect, Tom Waits working with Earl Palmer is a no-brainer. If you're gonna write R&B-influenced jazz songs, why wouldn't you want Earl Palmer in your band? However, this session is also noteworthy because it featured an important studio reunion. Years earlier, Palmer had worked with Waits' producer, Bones Howe, when a much younger Howe engineered Sam Cooke's "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day." In fact, the piano player on "Whistlin'" is Harold Battiste, who worked with Palmer and Howe on Sam's legendary "A Change Is Gonna Come" session. Meanwhile, the tenor saxophonist here is Herbert Hardesty, who worked alongside Palmer in Dave Bartholomew's studio band on those Little Richard and Fats Domino hits from the '50s. The lesson here is that if you stick around long enough, your worlds will collide.

Elvis Costello - Poisoned Rose - 1986

"It was the rhythm section that was daunting. On drums: Earl Palmer who, among many other things, had starred on most of the great Little Richard sides. On bass: Ray Brown, whose jazz recording credits could, and probably do, fill a book."
--Elvis Costello, from the liner notes to the King Of America Rhino reissue

My final Palmer number comes from Elvis Costello's great 1986 album, King Of America. Elvis' voice has rarely sounded better than it does on this song, his vocal prowess no doubt driven by the fact that Ray Brown and Earl Palmer were on hand, forcing him to bring his 'A' game. However, as good as Elvis sounds, Brown and Palmer make this song, their push-pull tension, subtle accents and fills, and tasteful understatement transforming a very good song into something damn near transcendent.

And so concludes our Sideman Spotlight on Earl Palmer. While the rest of the world heaps plaudits on showoffs and ballhogs, I wanted to give a little pub to one of American music's great tugboats. Palmer fashioned a 60-year Hall of Fame career out of being the consummate role player, bringing his best to each song, and in so doing being one of the unspoken pioneers of R&B and rock 'n' roll.

If you'd like to investigate further (and in much greater detail) you should check out his book, Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story. To hear more of his recorded work, you may wanna spring for The World's Greatest Drummer, Ever!, a collection put out by the British Ace label. This is where I got the Little Richard and Lloyd Price tracks, so if you enjoyed those, keep in mind that there's 28 other songs, all I believe from his 1950s heyday.