WITH A HIT, PALMER GETS ‘ADDICTED’

Cool and suave, Robert Palmer doesn’t impress easily. But the English singer admitted when he met one of his idols last year, he did succumb--somewhat at least--to awe.

The idol was Chaka Khan. “I bumped into her at a club,” he recalled. “We hit it off immediately. I spent the evening with her. I was impressed. She’s the one singer I’ve always wanted to sing with.”

Visions of a duet were dancing in his head.

“I told her I was recording and she wanted to come to the studio,” he said. “She showed up and we sang this song together that I was working on. The record sounded great.”

The song was the rocking “Addicted to Love,” currently No. 2 on the Billboard pop singles chart. It’s the first Top 10 single in Palmer’s solo recording career, which stretches back to 1974.

But wait. Khan doesn’t sing on “Addicted to Love.” The album credits Fonzie Thornton and Benny Diggs with background vocals. What happened?

This is a sore point. Palmer was seething as he explained: “Politics intervened. Her people said it was a conflict of interest. She’d have three singles out at the same time.”

Erasing her from the tape, he said, was heartbreaking. But she does get credit for the vocal arrangement. “She threw parts in and helped develop the song,” he said. “I couldn’t use her vocals but she deserves credit for what she contributed to the arrangement.”

“Addicted to Love” is one of the best singles of the year. Imagine how much better it would have been as a duet with a scintillating singer like Khan.

Palmer doesn’t like to think about it.

Palmer, who’s starring in sold-out shows Friday and Saturday at the Wiltern Theatre, is a sharp-tongued, hard-boiled cynic, his words frequently dripping with sarcasm. In music circles, he’s been called the Noel Coward of pop music.

Reportedly, though, he’s been mellowing. “No I haven’t,” he snapped. “I’m just better at disguising it these days. I’m the same guy underneath.”

When Palmer, 37, was younger, he looked like a GQ model. Now he looks like a mature GQ model. Women have always been wild about him. For these panting females, the big attraction at his concerts wasn’t the music but him . It has always irritated him that people paid so much attention to how he looks.

“It would get on my nerves,” he recalled. “The media made it worse. They didn’t know much about my music so they dealt with these other superficial things. But it’s not so much of a problem anymore. Now I have hit records they can talk about.”

Refreshingly, Palmer avoids traditional rock-singer antics. His understated vocals--particularly on “Addicted to Love”--bring a touch of class to a genre characterized by singers who confuse screeching with singing.

“Addicted to Love” is the second single from Palmer’s solo Island Records album, “Riptide,” released last fall and now No. 13. The first single, “Discipline of Love,” got a lukewarm reception. But there was no danger of this album sinking into oblivion. It’s too loaded with heavy artillery.

The first single wasn’t even the strongest on this rock-oriented album. “Addicted to Love” is the album’s powerhouse piece. “Hyperactive,” a slice of melodic techno-pop that should be the next single, is only slightly less appealing. Incidentally, the title song, which is not singles material, is terrific. It’s a lulling, atmospheric, ‘30s tune with a horn arrangement that effectively evokes the Depression.

With the exception of the title song, this isn’t a typical Palmer solo album. It’s basically mainstream rock. Yet he has always specialized in unorthodox material, high-quality songs that don’t have pop radio appeal. Growing up in England, he absorbed all sorts of influences, from English rock and American soul to ska and blues. Before he went solo in 1974, he sang in several bands and was always noted for a free-wheeling style that didn’t fit into any category.

Last year, though, mainstream rock captured his fancy. “I had been leaning toward more basic arrangements and a more heavily guitar-oriented sound,” he explained. “The music ended up being quartet arrangements, which tend to be in a rock direction. I wanted to change and that just felt like the right direction.”

His previous project, singing lead for the hard rock band called the Power Station, was his first deep plunge into the mainstream. The “Power Station” album, which sold over a million, features three hit singles: “Some Like It Hot,” “Communication” and “Bang a Gong.”

The Power Station was originated by Duran Duran’s John Taylor. Palmer collaborating with Duran members in a hard-rock project is as unlikely as Barry Manilow teaming up with James Brown. The Power Station project began as a helter-skelter experiment and gradually turned into an album. Palmer was a late addition.

When Taylor invited him to put vocals on some music tracks, Palmer, intrigued by the challenge, agreed. “I wasn’t even going to do an album,” he said. “They had already cut the tracks. They were asking me to make up lyrics and melody for what they had already done. It was just for fun on weekends.”

Palmer soon discovered that singing over already recorded tracks doesn’t leave much room for creativity and stretching out. “I had no choice about the key, the arrangements, the tempo,” he said.

For a long time, Palmer observed, it never seemed like an album project: “I was doing one song at a time, like a big experiment. I’d do one, trying this and that. It would turn out OK so I’d do another one. Then we realized we had six tunes and if we had a couple more we’d have an album. That’s what eventually happened.”

When Power Station toured, Palmer stayed home. His replacement was Michael Des Barres, who was universally panned. Reportedly, the Power Station leaders were angry that Palmer decided not to tour.

But he insisted he never had intentions of going on the road as Power Station’s lead singer. “I was never interested in touring with them,” he said. “I made that very clear. I sang on their album and that was it. After that, all I wanted to do was finish my own solo album.

“Whoever says there’s a problem between me and the people in Power Station don’t know what they’re talking about. I would definitely work with them again, if they came up with some material I liked.”

For Palmer, possibly the most important consequence of the Power Station project was meeting bassist/producer Bernard Edwards, a key figure in the band. Palmer was still working on his “Riptide” album. He needed a producer, so he recruited Edwards.

“Bernard was the only one in the studio with me at first when I went to sing on the Power Station tracks,” Palmer said. “We had an instant rapport.”

Palmer has always been respected by peers and fans largely because he has always seemed motivated by artistry rather than dollars. None of his music was ever overtly commercial. For him, the Top 10 was never-never land.

But now, of course, with Palmer a Top 10 veteran, fans are accusing him of selling out. The previously incorruptible cult figure, his fans charge, has been seduced by commercialism.

Palmer seemed unmoved by their disappointment.

“What do they think about me?” he asked. “I have no idea. I don’t want to give the wrong impression, but I don’t really care.”

Fans of his old material should cling to those albums. Palmer may never sound that way again. His next album, which he insisted will include a Chaka Khan duet, is being done with a producer whose expertise is in heavy metal.