The late, great Robert Palmer didn’t just rock it out with songs like “Bad Case Of Lovin’ You” and “Addicted To Love,” he also had the soul skills to get down with the best of them. Over his career, he showed off his R&B side with tunes originally recorded by the likes of Cherrelle, Jermaine Jackson, Marvin Gaye, and blues guitarist Earl King. Even Palmer’s biggest hit, 1986’s “Addicted To Love,” was recorded as a duet with Chaka Khan until her record label intervened (Khan’s vocals were removed, but she still received credit for the arrangement).

I could fill several Sundays with songs covered by Palmer, spanning an even wider variety of genres, but there’s a funky one from 1988’s Heavy Nova that I recently stumbled upon for the first time in nearly two decades. Though I was knee-deep in Palmer fandom for the latter half of the ’80s*, I admit not recalling that “Early In The Morning” was a cover. The song was written and recorded by The Gap Band, who topped Billboard’s R&B chart with it for three weeks in 1982. Uncovering that fact while doing some digging for this post, the cover makes total sense with Palmer’s history. The song’s desperate longing allows him to plumb the depths of his blue-eyed soul. Hear here:

“Early In The Morning” was the follow-up to Palmer’s #2 hit, “Simply Irresistible.” It proved less so, reaching only #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 (but still topping The Gap Band’s #24 showing on the same chart, the trio’s biggest Top 40 entry).

Purchase Robert Palmer – “Early In The Morning” via Amazon MP3.

*and swimming in an XL tee from Palmer’s Heavy Nova tour, the first real concert I ever attended. Coincidentally, just yesterday I came across that T-shirt in a box of random stuff I collected as a kid. Still in mint condition, the shirt remains a mite big on me.