Wed, Sep 22nd, 5:05pm
Friends of Earl Palmer, press news, released August 31 2004:
EARL PALMER S 80TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE
October 2004 marks the 80th birthday of a legend in popular recorded music:
drummer EARL PALMER.
A group of Earl s friends and associates have joined together to produce a
concert event honoring the life and creative contribution of one of the
recording industry s most influential performers and arguably music s most
recorded drummer.
Earl s 50-plus year career has been documented by the Smithsonian
Institution Press with the release of it s biography Backbeat - Earl
Palmer s Story. As Robert Palmer of Rolling Stone put it: - If any single
musician can be credited with defining rock & roll as a rhythmic idiom
distinct from the jump, R&B, and all else that precede it, that musician is
surely Earl Palmer. -
It is Earl playing of Tutti Frutti, La Bamba,
You ve Lost That Lovin Feelin. And it is Earl playing on T.V. and movie
themes for The Odd Couple, Mission Impossible, and The Brady Bunch.
He has been a session man for everyone from Frank Sinatra and Count Basie to
Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, and Tom Waits. Earl
Palmer was the first African-American to hold a national position with the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He served with distinction
as a NARAS Trustee, on the Board of Governors and as vice-president of the
NARAS Los Angeles Chapter as well as a multi-term officer of the Los Angeles
Musicians Union. Earl is co-founder of the Los Angeles Jazz Society,
recipient of the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, and
is also part of the elite group of sidemen first to be inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
We propose to produce a concert honoring Earl and his accomplishments in the
form of a career retrospective. It will take place at a venue such as the
Kodak or El Capitan Theaters. Friends and admirers of Earl likely to
participate in the show (some of whom have already agreed to take part)
include Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Brian Wilson, Lou Rawls, B.B. King, Lalo
Schifrin, Pat Boone, Maria Muldaur, Dave Bartholomew, Little Richard, and
members of the Marsalis family of New Orleans.
Mike Melvoin will serve as musical director, and a thirty-five piece
orchestra will be utilized to support the featured artists. Musical
selections will include seminal works that Earl helped to create ranging
from early Fats Domino, Little Richard and Sam Cooke to Doris Day, Frank
Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughn and Ray Charles, along with movie and TV
scores that are a part of the fabric of American Life. The live on-stage
performances will be supported by audio-visual enhancement, both in the form
of historic photos and video tributes.
It is planned that the concert will be hosted by several industry
luminaries; perhaps Quincy Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Herb Alpert, Max Weinberg
and Dennis Hopper.
The event is planned for the 4th quarter 2004 or early 2005. Proceeds from
the concerts ticket sales are intended to benefit MusiCares.[I] |
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