Robert Palmer: S&D

From the Phill Brown book:

As we finished the album the whole subject of the budget became a bit of a sore point. Despite the early attempts to keep costs under control, Some People Can Do What They Like turned out to be the most expensive album so far for Robert, at about $75,000. We had used 28 days of studio time for tracking, overdubbing and mixing, 22 reels of 2-inch multitrack tape, 10 reels of 1/4-inch mixing tape, and an unknown number of boxes of cassettes and razor blades. Twenty-three musicians, two engineers, three assistants, one producer and one model had been employed, not to mention Robert himself. Then there were fees for house rental, cars, hotel accommodation, flights, meals, hire equipment and per diems. Oh... and a cocaine bill for Robert of $10,000.

Green Gartside has an anecdote from his long 2019 radio interview where he praises Palmer as an R&B obsessive and, contrary to stories, an exceptionally courteous man. Palmer called him sometime in the early '00s to rave about another obscurity. Green was like, "Robert, where are you?" Palmer was standing in the ocean with a cell phone, like Al Pacino in The Insider.

There's a lot about Palmer in Guy Pratt's memoir too, all of it very fond.

Pratt on Palmer:

These were fabulously debauched times, although they were never keen on you leaving the house, figuring they had all the gourmet food, cocktail ingredients, narcotics, firearms, films and musical equipment anyone could ever wish for.