Simply irresistible

We've noticed one-time pop chameleon David Bowie transform himself into an art critic as well as a commodity on the futures market. We've seen the celibate Sir Cliffard of Rich simply defy the laws of nature by growing eerily younger-looking now than he was 40 years ago.

My recent mid-afternoon phone call to the Swiss retreat of Mr Sophisto-Funk himself, Robert Palmer, revealed there is another way to cope with increasing age, however. For, having recently celebrated his 50th birthday, the man who changed the face of pop with his raunchy promo video for Addicted To Love apparently keeps the years at bay by . . . well, by remaining addicted to love, frankly. As one of Robert Palmer's own big hits put it: some guys have all the luck.

Because as our trans-European conversation evolved - or unravelled, to be more accurate - it became clear that Mr Palmer was not alone. Initially, you see, our chat was underpinned by a far-off chinking noise: a banana daiquiri being freshly mixed in a lead-crystal goblet, perhaps.

In addition, my interviewee would periodically seem abstracted by a zephyr's passage, or the distant tinkling cadences of a woozy female voice. Finally, at the climax of an impassioned discourse by Mr Palmer on the samba-tastic charms of Brazilian songsmith Joao Gilberto, I suddenly found myself having one of Gilberto's bossa nova hits softly coo'd at me down the phone in person by Mr Palmer's Latinate paramour.

'Ecky thump! Considering he's a Yorkshire bloke from no-nonsense Batley who's not in the first flush of youth, Robert Palmer evidently remains capable of charming his own weight in tuneful chicks. And to judge by his forthcoming album for the Eagle label, Rhythm And Blues - following a four-year absence - Robert Palmer can still ooze'n'smoulder his way manfully though a finely-wrought set of bump'n'grind anthems, too.

Enlighten us as to the secrets of your enduring success in music and in making sustained kissy-face, Your Smoochfulness.

''Over the past few years I've worked in a number of different countries, and it struck me that I was famous in different places for different things,'' he says in a voice prone to placing the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syll-ABLE. ''I became aware that I've not set a particular musical niche for myself. I'm not a group for a start.

''I can do romantic-strings things. I can do tongue-in-cheek rock, or rock rock. On the new album I do what you might call comedy calypso. I think this has bothered some people over the years, but all that truly concerns me is being sweet and gentle live on stage, and continuing above all to do what it is that I do - which is sing love songs.

''I can't think of a better job than that. I just hope I do it as beautifully as one of my idols, Nat King Cole. Music is what I want to make. I've never wanted to be a pop star, or famous . . . I just want to communicate in the international language, which is music.

''I hear lots of music around me these days, and I know I don't want to sound the way it does . . . I don't want to sound homogenised and pre-digested.''

Nowhere is this intention more fully realised than on the two covers on offer on Rhythm And Blues, of Lowell George's Twenty Million Things and Marvin Gaye's carnal hymn Let's Get It On. But do you mind me suggesting that the latter, despite featuring a mutli-tracked multiplicity of your growly pleadings, is maybe a little too simplistically synth-bound, Mr P?

''Well, the bottom line there was that I'd considered doing it a capella. I'd spent so much time recording all the voices that I didn't want to drown them in stylistic instrumental stuff. But I just did what I felt would exaggerate the fact that the song is being sung.

''I also fiddled about with setting Let's Get It On in a number of modern styles, but which one? Eventually I felt it best to leave it in Marvin's original style . . . what you might call, ah . . .''

Heartfelt?

''No, dick-felt! It's got an erotic quality, that song. I love stepping into Marvin's shoes . . . it's a trip when you're in someone else's space, you learn so much. I didn't want to become a Marvin Gaye soundalike, either, but I didn't want to lose any of his cool moves.''

However, at this point Mr Palmer's cocktail-toting ladyfriend more plainly hoves to, and my chat with him assumes a more surreal mien. A casual enquiry about the concrete rewards resulting from Mr Palmer's success over the past 20 years prompts him to state that he's ''never been interested in collecting warplanes like Pink Floyd . . . but I did collect a bunch of kisses last night.''

Furthermore, Robert Palmer's definition of singing live is that it's about ''entering a Zen zone-out - if I remember any particular gig, something was wrong. Singing is vanishing - I have to slip into the space where I sing, plus I want to make it new every time I do it.''

Mr Palmer then likens his every confrontation with a microphone to the act of placing his lips to his girlfriend's ear. ''I want to re-illuminate the funk!'' he next proclaims. We move seamlessly to Mr Palmer's verdict on funkmeister James Brown's live form these days - ''A parody of himself!'' - prior to words of praise for another act he's recently seen, the aforementioned Joao Gilberto.

As previously outlined, his doxy sings. An air of verbal wonkiness prevails. Mr Palmer expresses his credo: ''We need more ROMANCE in the world . . . I'm a romantic. That's what I try to DO. It's important to me. But I can't take myself

too seriously.

''I mean,'' Robert Palmer says, seeming to reach his big philosophical conclusion, his flat Yorkshire tones becoming strangely more prevalent, and ever more at odds with my notion of his dwelling with a sultry love-siren in a marbled Swiss mansion: ''I wouldn't hang a Caravaggio on my wall because the guy KILLED his opponent in a TENNIS match and then died in Malta of SYPHILIS - I wouldn't go THAT far for MY art.''

Er, few of us would.

''Hey! I'm gonna hang up now to go KISS my girlfriend.''

And with that, he does. Simply irresistible, some lucky guys, I guess.