Drive by Robert Palmer

Drive is a 2003 album by British musician Robert Palmer, his fourteenth solo studio album, and his last album before his death. Drive was critically hailed as the grittiest and most heartfelt album of Palmer's career. Initially approached by guitarist Carl Carlton to contribute to the 2001 Robert Johnson tribute album Hellhound on My Trail, for which Palmer recorded "Milk Cow's Calf Blues" with Carlton on guitars, Palmer was then invited by Faye Dunaway to provide the soundtrack to her 2001 directorial debut The Yellow Bird, set in Mississippi and New Orleans during the 1940s and 1950s. Palmer took both signs as a good omen, and the impetus for Drive was born. After more thoroughly researching this particular genre of music, Palmer assembled a list of fifty possible tracks, and then began the arduous task of whittling that list down to a manageable set of twelve. The selections from Drive can best be described as a loose collection of both standard and contemporary blues compositions (Robert Johnson, Little Willie John, Keb' Mo'), with a smattering of other genres, including folk (Nicolai Dunger) and calypso (Mighty Sparrow), prompting Palmer to call the end result "a gut-buckety swamp thing." The recording and mixing of Drive took place in both Logic Studios (Milan, Italy) and Palmer's home studio (Lugano, Switzerland). Because of the satisfaction and enthusiasm having recorded the initial twelve songs, Palmer decided to cut three more tracks ("29 Ways [To My Baby's Door]," "It Hurts Me Too," "Stupid Cupid"), this time at the Sphere in London. The album peaked at #10 on the US Blues albums chart.