Contact: Judy McDonough,

Compendia Music Group                                                                                        

615-277-1824

jmcdonough@compendiamusic.com

Robert Palmer Signs With Compendia Music Group
Superstar’s first Compendia project, DRIVE, to be released in May 2003

NASHVILLE, TN - (February 11, 2003) – Music superstar Robert Palmer – the multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning performer with one of the most distinctive voices in rock – has signed with Compendia Music Group. Michael Olsen, president of Compendia Music Group, made the announcement today.

Palmer’s upcoming project, the blues-soaked album DRIVE, is scheduled for a May 2003 release on the Compendia label in the United States and Canada, with the first single released to radio in the U.S. in March.

"I am excited to be working with Compendia Music Group,” said Palmer. “Their roster is as diverse as my own musical tastes. The fact that they are a new label adds to the energy and enthusiasm they are putting into promoting my new record."

Robert Palmer's career has spanned nearly 30 years, encompassing a wide variety of musical styles: from the sweaty rock of his formative years in Vinegar Joe to the R&B flavor of such early classics as "Every Kinda People" and “Bad Case Of Loving You,” from the out and out pop crunch of his Grammy-winning singles “Addicted To Love” and “Simply Irresistible” - as well as being the voice behind Power Station’s smash hits “Some Like It Hot” and “Get It On (Bang A Gong)” - to the big band sound and jazz standards of his critically acclaimed projects in the 1990s.

“Robert Palmer - that voice, singing the blues - we’d be crazy not to jump all over this project,” said Walt Wilson, general manager and vice-president of Compendia Music.

In the liner notes of DRIVE, Palmer explains how he came to record a blues record: "Carl Carlton, the guitarist on this rambunctious rocker, asked me out of the blue if I was interested in contributing to a Robert Johnson tribute album. Despite, or rather because of my lack of experience in the genre, I took the challenge, and loved re-illuminating the subtle sophistications of what I can only loosely term 'the blues.’ So when Faye Dunaway asked me to provide the soundtrack for her movie ‘Yellow Bird,’ which is set in the 40s/50s in Mississippi and New Orleans, I took my research as an omen, and decided to go the whole hog. It's the first record I've made which I play for my own pleasure, and don't think to myself, ‘Oh no…If only I'd done this or that’… instead I think, ‘It's finished - oh yeah!’ "

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