Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley

The Zoo Crew just spun that slippery little number "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley" off Robert Palmer's debut solo album of the same name, and if you Zoo Freaks have been riding along with us you already know how that groove sneaks up and sticks. Palmer cut this one back in 1974 right after Vinegar Joe packed it in, and the whole session felt like a kid from Yorkshire walking into a New Orleans funk church and somehow holding his own. Allen Toussaint wrote the song years earlier and Lee Dorsey laid it down first on his Yes We Can album, but Palmer's take, backed by The Meters and with Lowell George of Little Feat sliding guitar lines through it, turned the alley into a full-on street party. Palmer later told interviewers he was this white English kid showing up to work with bands he'd only heard on vinyl, and the New York cats in Stuff didn't even say hello at first. Then eight bars into the first tune Bernard Purdie turned around and asked what the name was, and after that it was all good. That story still gets told because it shows how the groove sold itself before anybody knew the singer's name.

The album opens with a three-song run that locks together so tight you almost can't hear one without the next. Sailin' Shoes slides into Hey Julia and then the title track comes roaring in with that double-talk lyric about getting caught in the alley when the wife shows up. Palmer said they kept cueing sections by numbers the way they do it down in New Orleans, just going until somebody woke up. Lowell George was in the room too, and Palmer talked about how you'd catch a grain of an idea with him and next thing you knew a day had passed and a song was sitting there. George and Palmer even co-wrote Blackmail in a hotel room over room service, and the whole record carries that loose, lived-in feel. Critics at the time called it stylish funk and blue-eyed soul, and the album only reached 107 on the Billboard chart, yet Island still kept the royalty checks coming years later because the music held up. Ringo Starr covered the song a few years after, and you can still hear the New Orleans pulse under Palmer's version whenever the Zoo Crew drops the needle.

Listen close to the lyrics and you catch the double-talk, the catching-himself-in-lies lines, and the moment mama just looks at him like he's crazy and doesn't even bat an eye. That whole caught-in-the-act story fits the album's cover shot too, the green-tinted photo of Palmer and a woman in a blindfold looking like they just got nabbed under the streetlights. Palmer once said he was trying for that funk-jam feel he always had a thing for, and he got it even more than he'd hoped. The sessions happened in New Orleans, New York, and later at Compass Point, with Art Neville and the rest of The Meters locking the pocket while Palmer sang over the top. One interviewer asked about the long jam that closes the album, Through It All There's You, and Palmer just said there was no reason to stop. You go to the three section and keep rolling. That spirit is why the record still sounds fresh when it comes up on the air here at THE ZOO.

Robert Palmer got started long before any of that New Orleans work. He was born Robert Allen Palmer in Batley, Yorkshire, in 1949, and when he was just a few months old the family moved to Malta where his father served in naval intelligence. Growing up on the base he soaked up American Forces Radio, catching Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and the rest of the soul and jazz that came through the speakers. When the family returned to England he landed in Scarborough, and by fifteen he had joined his first band, the Mandrakes, while still at school. They opened for bigger acts and even made it over to Scandinavia for a stretch. After a cleaner tossed out a bunch of his art-school work he dropped the graphics studies and stuck with the music. His first real break came when Jess Roden left the Alan Bown Set and they brought Palmer in to cut the single Gypsy Girl; he ended up singing the whole album after that.

From there he moved to London and joined the big jazz-rock outfit Dada alongside Elkie Brooks and Pete Gage. That band didn't last long, but the three of them spun off into Vinegar Joe, a soul-rock group that signed to Island and cut three albums. Palmer shared the lead vocals with Brooks and played rhythm guitar, and the live shows had a reputation even if the records didn't fly off the shelves. Island's Chris Blackwell had his eye on Palmer the whole time, and once Vinegar Joe called it quits in 1974 he finally got the solo deal. Blackwell paired him with producer Steve Smith, and the first thing they did was send him to New Orleans to cut with the local cats. Palmer later said his ideas carried through from start to finish and the spontaneity came from hiring the right people. That first album set the tone for the rest of his career, the one where he mixed New Orleans funk, a little reggae later on, and whatever else caught his ear, always with that sharp sense of style and a voice that could ride any groove. You can dig deeper into the whole catalog and the stories behind the records over at the official site Robert Palmer, and the Facebook page that keeps the posts and photos coming is right here Robert Palmer - Singer.

That early run with the Mandrakes and the Alan Bown Set taught him how to hold a stage, and the Vinegar Joe years showed he could share the spotlight without losing his own sound. By the time he walked into the studio for Sneakin' Sally he already had the confidence to call the shots even while he was still learning the room. The Zoo Crew keeps spinning the deep cuts and the title tracks because the music still moves, and the stories behind them remind us how a kid who grew up on Armed Forces Radio ended up cutting one of the funkiest debuts of the seventies. Keep it locked right here with the rest of the Zoo Freaks and we'll keep the records turning.