"Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" was Robert Palmer's debut solo album, released in 1974.
Before Robert's cocaine frosted 1980s urbane image, with his Giorgio Armani suits, slickly produced albums, and MTV videos with a "backing band" featuring supermodels, he was a soul singer deeply rooted in Soul, R'n'B and funk, and "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" has all those influences in spades.
Backing Robert is a who’s who of the funky and the famous, including three members of Little Feat including Lowell George whose slide guitar gives it that “George Effect”; three members of the Meters; everyone from the group Stuff, which was led by Cornell Dupree and Bernard Purdie; and strings by Gene Page. The music has a laid-back groove, whether Palmer's covering New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint or singing originals. While the music is tight and solid, it is Robert Palmer's voice that steals the show; he sounds supremely confident among these talented musicians, and they seem to feed off his vocal intensity.
"Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" was recorded in New Orleans, New York City and Compass Point Studios in Nassau. Robert arrived in the studio with some rough sketches, but most of ‘Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley’ was developed on the spot, and wisely took advantage of the collective knowledge in the room.
Track listing
- "Sailing Shoes"
- "Hey Julia"
- "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley"
- "Get Outside"
- "Blackmail"
- "How Much Fun"
- "From a Whisper to a Scream"
- "Through It All There's You"
For the freeload, tell us what was the sneakiest thing you did as a teenager.
It was a total shock when I picked up this record. I had only known the 80s- post-Power Station smooth operator with the big 80s production, so seeing Palmer groove and swing to music that does sound a lot like Little Feat.
ReplyDeleteno way on ?:). saw Robert a year or 2 b4 the super model video breakout. club show maybe 10 players maybe same amount of countries represented. Very cool. I was happy 4 his success. died way2soon
ReplyDeleteNeal t
The sneakiest thing? This will take some thinking. Seems everything I did as a teenager was sneaky. Sneaking alcohol from my parents stash to smoking dope behind the garage. But the sneakiest? Gotta dwell on this.
ReplyDeleteSex with next door neighbours daughter on back lawn both parents working late.Many times! She wanted to loan some of my records in return. :)
ReplyDeleteRobert even performed once in Bangkok, but in those days I couldn't afford concerts... Sneaky.., first thing that comes to mind is fairly innocent, but as a 7 year old I added a spoon of salt into the sugar bowl just before my relatives were about to eat pancakes... It took them a while to figure out what happened!
ReplyDeleteSneaking my girlfriend into the house while my parents were gone one weekday when I was 16.
ReplyDeleteI played this LP a lot in the 70's and 80's.
Once, my parents came home early, and my boyfriend hid in my bedroom closet until the "coast was clear".
ReplyDeleteBut here's some world-class sneakiness:
In high school, my best friend, Denise “The Grease” had to be home by 11PM on the weekends. This is how we scammed Denise’s mother, so “The Grease” could stay out later.
Around 10 minutes to 11, I’d call Denise’s house from the phone we had in the kitchen at my house, while Denise was on the extension, in the living room.
When Denise’s mother, (who would be asleep) picked up the phone, this is how it played out:
Denise’s mother: “Hello”
Me: “Hi, it’s Babs, is Denise there?”
Denise’s mother: “Oh, hi Babs, it’s very late to be calling”
Me: “I’m really sorry, but I need to talk to Denise, about homework.”
At this point, Denise would say: “I got it, Mom.”
Denise’s mother: “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Denise: “I’m downstairs, go back to sleep.”
Worked every time.
Sneakiest? Probably modifying a Hi-Lite pen to when you tapped the felt, the plug at the bottom fell out along with a alligator clip & a couple of joints. The pen body then became the handle for the roach clip.
ReplyDeleteOnly episode I feel comfortable letting out in public was my senior year in high school (all male school run by brothers), we had a journalism department Christmas party on school grounds, that I helped "cater"; case of vodka, and some enhanced brownies. One of the brothers who immensely disliked me figured out I had vodka bottles in a closet and he called the school principal to come over, and then pulled up a chair in front of the booze closet. The lay teacher in charge of the journalism dept, the late, great, Ken Hechler, saw what was happening and proceeded to have the booze busting brother paged over the Pa system to tend to some fake emergency in another bldg, which gave us time to get the booze hauled out and into Hechler's car. On tne way to burying the stash, Hechler asked me about my brownies and I confessed to him about the ingredients. He said good, and when the booze busting brother returned to the party and saw that the stash was gone, Heckler offered him a brownie.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Toussaint had high praise for Palmer, and thought that the Sally record was the best thing he ever worked on that was headed by a non- New Orleans' artist.
ReplyDeleteWhile I tried to be sneaky, my attempts always collapsed around me & I almost always got caught. I was convinced (for years) that my mom really did have eyes in the back of her head like she often told me.
ReplyDeleteMy sneaky tale is sex and drug free. There were plenty of those stories but this is something I still feel bad about it today. Every kid sneaks a peek at Christmas presents. Seventh grade or so I saw I was getting a calculator. This is way back when a four-function calculator was a three figure purchase and a stretch for my single-parenting mom. Christmas was weeks away but I had homework that needed calculating now. So after school while my mom was still at work, I would sneak the calculator out of its box, do my work and replace it. Then my electrical engineering curiosity got ahold of me. When I plugged in the power supply for the household typewriter, the tiny calculator flashed brightly for a split-second, turned black and gave off a bad smell. I snuck it back into the box for the last time. Christmas morning I faked on "Oh Boy!", gave the calculator a try and said "I don't know Mom, maybe it's defective". I feel worse about it today because now I realize how I stole a moment of parental joy from her.
ReplyDeleteIn 1971, I bought a Busicom LE-120A "The HANDY", It cost about $350.00, which was a lot of money back then..
DeleteDid you have a slide rule, August?
I know I had a slide rule but I don't recall ever using it. All my learning and working was in the computer era.
DeleteTo be more accurate, my first job was in the adding machine era and our spreadsheets were paper.
DeleteThe slide rule was an elegant weapon for a more civilized age...
DeleteSadly, the first calculators appeared after I had suffered through calculus long-hand. When the first good ones came out, my brother was a freshman & dad went to buy one for him. Damn thing was $350! About a week later, the price dropped to $150, so dad took it back to the store, said it was defective & got a refund. Then he turned around & bought the discounted version. Dad was a parsimonious cuss, but he did love calculators & computers.
DeleteAs for me, calculators & slide rules dredge up a long story which I won't regurgitate, but I shall use this as a blatant plug for my own (non-muzakal) blog:
https://bluenote-cyberstar.blogspot.com/2023/04/nerd-strange-and-terrible-saga.html
Very nice story.
DeleteI didn't know you had a blog, BlueNote Cyberstar. I've added you to my blog list
Link
ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/t-gqOG5QrA0u
I saw him play the Roxy right after this record came out. Outstanding show! Great band. Smooth and rockin'.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to sneak in a link to the Palmer posts on my blog (one of them from art58koen):
ReplyDeletehttps://jonderblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Robert%20Palmer
A sneaky thing I did as a kid was to hide all my mother's casserole recipes. She had a box of 3x5 recipe cards, and I disliked casseroles. She didn't find the cards for many years. Who knows how many casseroles I was spared...
Jonder reminds me I rearranged my mom's exotic perfume bottles as a wee youth who was fascinated by them but this led to my first drunk when I met a punk friend at the arcade/bowling alley who came over to our house, we decided to each take a bottle of champagne then inserted a bottle each into our shorts AS I ASKED MY MOM IF I COULD SLEEP OVER AT HIS HOUSE without her realizing at all. So when we got there on bikes, we went to the basement, got drunk and he played his three punk albums first Youth Brigade, then Crass double album then FLIPPER...wow!! I went on to do a punk blog.
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