Earl Palmer
Palmer in 2000
Background information
Birth name	Earl Cyril Palmer
Born	(1924-10-25)October 25, 1924 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	September 19, 2008(2008-09-19) (aged 83) Banning, California, U.S.
Genres	R&B, rock, jazz
Occupation(s)	Session musician
Instrument(s)	Drums

Earl Cyril Palmer (October 25, 1924 – September 19, 2008) was an American drummer. Considered one of the inventors of rock and roll,^[1] he is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[2]

Palmer was one of the most prolific studio musicians of all time and played on thousands of recordings, including nearly all of Little Richard's hits, all of Fats Domino's hits, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" by the Righteous Brothers, and a long list of classic TV and film soundtracks. According to one obituary, "his list of credits read like a Who's Who of American popular music of the last 60 years".^[3]

Biography

Born into a show-business family in New Orleans and raised in the Tremé district, Palmer started his career at five as a tap dancer, joining his mother and aunt on the black vaudeville circuit in its twilight and touring the country extensively with Ida Cox's Darktown Scandals Review. His father is thought to have been the local pianist and bandleader Walter "Fats" Pichon.^[3]

Palmer was 12 when he headlined a floor show at the Rhythm Club in New Orleans, "a very beautiful spot where one can enjoy a floor show, headed by Alvin Howey and Little Earl Palmer".^[4]

Palmer served in the United States Army during World War II and was posted in the European theatre.^[5] His biographer wrote,

Most Negro recruits were assigned to noncombatant service troops: work gangs in uniform. "They didn't want no niggers carrying guns," says Earl; they carried shovels and garbage cans instead. Earl's job, loading and handling ammunition, was relatively technical, but his duty was clear: to serve white infantrymen.

— Tony Scherman, Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story (1999), p. 47^[6]

After the war ended Palmer studied piano and percussion at the Gruenwald School of Music in New Orleans, where he also learned to read music. He started drumming with the Dave Bartholomew Band in the late 1940s.^[3] Palmer was known for playing on New Orleans recording sessions, including Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" and "I'm Walkin" (and several more of Domino's hits), "Tipitina" by Professor Longhair, "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard (and most of Richard's hits), "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" by Lloyd Price, and "I Hear You Knocking'" by Smiley Lewis.

His playing on "The Fat Man" featured the backbeat that has come to be the most important element in rock and roll. Palmer 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." Reportedly, he was the first to use the word funky, to explain to other musicians that their music should be made more syncopated and danceable.^[3]

Palmer left New Orleans for Hollywood in 1957, initially working for Aladdin Records. He soon started working with the Wrecking Crew, a loose-knit group of session musicians who recorded nonstop during their heyday from 1962 to 1968.

The musicians union tracked Palmer playing on 450 dates in 1967 alone.

For more than 30 years he played drums on the soundtracks of many movies and television shows. Amongst the many artists he worked with were Glenn Yarbrough, Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Vee, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Bobby Day, Don and Dewey, Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys, Larry Williams, Gene McDaniels, Bobby Darin, Neil Young, The Pets, The Byrds when they were still known as The Beefeaters, and B. Bumble and the Stingers. He also played in jazz sessions with David Axelrod, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, Onzy Matthews, and Count Basie, and he contributed to blues recordings by B.B. King.

He remained in demand as a drummer throughout the 1970s and 1980s, playing on recordings for albums by Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Tim Buckley, Little Feat and Elvis Costello.^[3]

In 1982, Palmer was elected treasurer of the Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians. He served until he was defeated in 1984. He was re-elected in 1990.^[5]

A biography, Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story, by Tony Scherman, was published in 1999.^[6]

In later years, Palmer played with a jazz trio in Los Angeles.^[3]

Palmer is interviewed on screen and appears in performance footage in the 2005 documentary film Make It Funky!, which presents a history of New Orleans music and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk and jazz.^[7] In the film, he performs "Rip It Up" with guest vocalist Ivan Neville and house band.^[8]

Palmer is also interviewed in the 2008 documentary film about Los Angeles session musicians, The Wrecking Crew.

Palmer died in September 2008, in Banning, California, after a long illness.^[9] He is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

Personal life

Palmer married four times and had seven children.^[2] He is survived by Earl Cyril Palmer Jr., Donald Alfred Palmer, Ronald Raymond Palmer and Patricia Ann Palmer from his marriage to Catherine Palmer; Shelly Margaret Palmer and Pamela Teresa Palmer from his marriage to Susan Joy Weidenpesch; and Penny Yasuko Palmer from his marriage to Yumiko Makino. He married his fourth wife, Jeline,^[9] in 2004.

Quotations

• "You could always tell a New Orleans drummer the minute you heard him play his bass drum because he'd have that parade beat connotation."
• Late in his career, Palmer appeared in a music video with the band Cracker on the song "I Hate My Generation". As Addicted to Noise tells the story, "According to Cracker leader David Lowery, when Palmer was asked if he would be able to play along with the songs, he gave Lowery a look and said, 'I invented this shit.'"
• "I've been asked if people could borrow my drums because they like their sound. What the hell, they think the drums play themselves? I said, 'You really want 'em? Really? Okay. Cost you triple scale and cartage.'"
• When asked by Max Weinberg what more of the recording sessions he'd played on Palmer replied, "Don't ask me which ones I played on. I should have done like Hal [Blaine]. Hal used to get gold records for all the things he played on. I never did that, you know. I would like to have a room with all those things in them. It would have been nice—show my grandchildren when they grow up so they don't say, 'Oh shut up old man and sit down.' I could just say, 'Look. I don't have to tell you nothing. There it is.'"^[10]

Awards

In 2000, Palmer became one of the first session musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[3]

Discography

As leader

Singles

Film scores

Palmer was the session drummer for a number of film scores, including:^[6]

1961

Judgment at Nuremberg, score by Ernest Gold

1963

Hud, score by Elmer Bernstein

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, score by Ernest Gold

1964

Baby the Rain Must Fall, score by Elmer Bernstein

Ride the Wild Surf, score by Stu Phillips

Robin and the Seven Hoods, score by Nelson Riddle

1965

Boeing Boeing, score by Neal Hefti

Harlow, score by Neal Hefti

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, score by Les Baxter

A Patch of Blue, score by Jerry Goldsmith

1967

Pretty Polly, score by Michel Legrand

Cool Hand Luke, score by Lalo Schifrin

In the Heat of the Night, score by Quincy Jones

1968

A Dandy in Aspic, score by Quincy Jones

Television scores

Palmer was also the session drummer for a number of television show themes and soundtracks, including:^[6]

1952

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963