Tom Palmer

There’s simply no mistaking the voice of Tom Palmer.Gravel-edged, rich and rumbling it reverberates through a fine collection of mostly self-penned songs about to be heard by a much wider audience when he releases his self-titled album on March 17. It will be the first release on the new independent label of Show of Hands’ Phil Beer - Chudleigh Roots.Yorkshireman Palmer is a big man with a big voice. The well travelled troubadour now living in Cornwall is the latest stand-out voice to come from the om supports the Phil Beer Band at Plough Arts Centre, Torrington, Devon (Feb 27), Rugby Rtalent-rich West Country. His influences range from James Taylor to John Martyn, Richard Thompson to Jackson Browne.The eponymous 13-track album, by turn funky, folky, bluesy and soulful, is produced by Beer. It features not just Palmer’s trademark voice but also his skilled playing on acoustic and Spanish guitar and mandocello, ably aided and abetted by Show of Hands’s Steve Knightley, double bassist Miranda Sykes, new fiddle-singing sensation Jackie Oates, his daughter Holly Palmer on vocals and Beer on instruments from fiddle to dobro and laud. Not forgetting his beloved Irish wolfhound Jack – the “handsome hound” who contributes to the cover image!Born in Pontefract, Palmer has netted a big catch of south coast maritime hostelries for his regular gigging ground – from The Three Pilchards Inn in Polperro to The Smugglers at Hastings and The Jolly Sailor Inn in his home town of Looe.But that is just part of his story. He has had his own Tom Palmer Band whilst as a solo performer he has performed at Cambridge Folk Festival, Glastonbury and Cornwall’s unique Elephant Fair and last year guested with Show of Hands in front of 5,000 people at a sold out Royal Albert Hall.It was at Cambridge that he first met Phil Beer and they went on to record a 1995 album together called Living with the Flaws, produced by Beer.His success as a musician is all the more unexpected seeing as he trained as a chef and wasn’t impressed by the guitar he was given for his 11th birthday. “I used it as a cricket bat for a while and then it was consigned to the loft,” says Tom. But at his 13th birthday a guitar-brandishing friend demonstrated some simple songs. Palmer decided to dust down his guitar, buy a set of new strings with his birthday money and get his friend to teach him three chords. “The first song I ever played was Blowin’ in the Wind and then I was away,” he says.Keen to earn a living from singing and songwriting he later became half of a duo playing local pubs, did floor spots at Pontefract Folk Club and formed the four-piece Tom Palmer Band. “My family told me I should get a proper job but I hadn’t got a clue what to do. At the time the sister of my girlfriend was going out with a chef so I went off and got a decent set of cheffing qualifications.”The chef’s certificate was his ticket to travel and he left Yorkshire in 1974 to take a job at a hotel on the golden sands of Cornwall’s Watergate Bay. “It was the owner of that hotel who first paid me to sing. He’d heard I’d been playing at some of the local pubs and said he’d put an extra fiver in my wage packet if I performed there on Tuesday nights. It was certainly better than working in a hot, smelly kitchen!”He loved Cornwall and its Atlantic beaches (the hidden gem of Beacon Cove is the inspiration for a beautiful track on the album) but in 1986 followed his heart – and his then girlfriend - to the South East, pitching up in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, later moving to Gillingham and then to Hastings on the Sussex coast.Confessing to having itchy feet (“though not as much now”), his penultimate album Kickin’ Back was mostly written during nine weeks on the other side of the world, on the northern coast of Penang, Malaysia. He had gone there to unwind following a tiring nine month tour of Australia and the paradise of the Perhentian islands – where South Pacific was filmed - proved more than inspirational for his songwriting.Says Tom: “We were basically staying on an island with a rainforest in the middle but no electricity and no roads. We were based next to a mosque and you’d wake every morning to the sound of the call to prayer.” That triggered his first instrumental track, called Batu Ferrenghi (Foreigner’s Rock).Back in Kent about four years ago, Tom found himself longing again for the Cornish beaches and way of life so relocated to Looe. Says Palmer: “ Playing to the background hubbub of pubs had become a bit of a soundtrack to my life and I still enjoy that but now I’m out there playing in folk clubs and arts centres. I cut my teeth in folk clubs but I’d forgotten how good it is to have a listening audience.”In addition to his solo work he also takes to the road with his 25-year-old singer guitarist daughter Holly in a duo simply entitled Palmer. He also has a son, Thomas, based in America.He is delighted that Devon based Beer agreed to produce his new album which is a diverse calling card with canny, heartfelt observations about the human condition and strong hooky melodies – there are themes of friendship and love, trust and frailty and “home and away” songs – some written thousands of miles away and some written right on his doorstep, one simply called “Home” the lyrics of which reveal the road numbers of the western bound routes that lead back to base! Tom and daughter Holly who sings on the albumThe moving opener Static on the Line is about people you trust letting you down and he uses parallels of his own experience with an espionage book he read about a US army troop on a dangerous undercover operation who got into difficulties and were abandoned by their superiors back at base.His voice is at its reverberating best in Blood in the Dirt –about the craziness of war – and Spanish guitars come into their own on Standing Strong, which Tom describes as a song about “being there for your friends even when they are being really stupid.”Something You Said is an emotive number about a late friend who never lived to see his children grow up, Correspondence concerns a letter that he never wanted the post to bring, while Dakka Dan is a true story about a man ever hopeful that today will be the day he finds the piece of black opal that will make him rich. Says Tom: “He was living in diabolical conditions on Lighting Ridge in Australia – it was 50 degrees and he would spent up to 14 hours a day down a hole searching for the exquisite black opal, which is as priceless as diamonds. Just 500 yards away people had struck lucky and become millionaires but he never did.” Two covers also feature on the album – Paul Brady’s Crazy Dream and his superb version of John Hiatt and Ry Cooder’s Borderline.Then there’s the funky That Thing as played at the Royal Albert Hall last year.” I suffer from stage nerves and I had nine months to worry about that appearance and how to make an impact in the short time I was out there. But it was mind bogglingly good and the audience seemed to love it. You couldn’t have knocked me down with a piece of wood for days afterwards!”Toots (March 1) and Tewkesbury Roses Theatre, Gloucestershire (March 2).For Tom Palmer’s current gig dates see www.tom-palmer.co.uk and www.myspace.com/tompalmer* For interviews with Tom, hi res images and further information please contact: Jane Brace PR on (01243) 789554 or [email protected]