Poli Palmer

Born John Michael Palmer in May 1943 in Worcester, England, John "Poli" Palmer was Family's most distinctive instrumentalist — vibraphone, flute, electric piano, EMS synthesisers, congas, the occasional drum kit when called for — and the player whose late-1969 arrival re-shaped the band's trajectory. He died on 21 July 2025, aged 82.

The "Poli" nickname predated Family entirely: as he later told The Weaver's Answer fanzine, he had carried it since boyhood and tried unsuccessfully to lose it when he moved from the Midlands to London. "It arrived ahead of me." Inside Family it stuck for a separate reason — there were already too many Johns (Whitney, Wetton, Weider) for another to slip in undetected.

Worcester to London (1958–1969)

Palmer started on drums at fourteen, taking lessons with a local pro who also played vibraphone. "As soon as I saw him play them," Palmer remembered, "I knew that was the horn for me." He taught himself vibes, piano and flute, reading harmony and counterpoint independently — the autodidact-with-foundations pattern he'd carry through his career. Worcester is "a sleepy country town about 30–40 miles south of Birmingham," and it was there that Jim Capaldi put together The Hellions as a four-piece in the mid-1960s — Capaldi on drums, Dave Mason and Gordon Jackson on guitars, Dave Meredith on bass. When the band moved Capaldi to the front as vocalist they brought Palmer in to share the kit; he and Capaldi alternated on drums while Palmer added vibes or flute when not behind the snare.

Mason left; Luther Grosvenor (later of Spooky Tooth) replaced him; the band became Deep Feeling. They signed to Marmalade Records under Giorgio Gomelsky (former manager of the Yardbirds), and were encouraged to write originals — six tracks were cut, none released at the time. After Traffic formed and Deep Feeling split, Palmer moved to London in 1967 to join Blossom Toes for the year between their first and second albums, contributing vibes and lead vocals on the 1968 B-side Everybody's Leaving Me Now (a track since reissued on Think Like A Key Music's Blossom Toes campaign). A short stint with the eclectic folk-rock outfit Eclection followed in late 1969 — "three folkies and three rockers", Palmer's first band where he wasn't the drummer — but the contract wrangle that prevented Eclection from recording also gave Palmer the freedom to take a phone call from Family.

Family (late 1969 – December 1972)

He had already crossed paths with Jim King during the Blossom Toes period — they used to "sit on the back porch and play flute / soprano sax duets." When Family played the Royal Festival Hall for the Family Entertainment tour, each member did a featured solo number; Townsend rang Palmer for a duet. Palmer wrote a tune they played together, untitled at the time, which would later resurface on a John Peel session under a Chapman-coined name: Here Comes the Grin. "I could never come up with titles, so he used to name most of my stuff." That gig, plus drinking with Chapman at the Speakeasy, put Palmer's name in the hat when Family needed a King replacement in late 1969.

Palmer stepped into a band whose A Song For Me material had been written for King's saxes and harmonica, and was now being re-arranged in real time around vibes, flute, electric piano and pickups Palmer had had custom-fitted. "Drowned in Wine" turned into a rocker built on his over-amplified flute; "Love Is a Sleeper" picked up the vibe-led jazz shimmer. Across Anyway (1970), Fearless (1971), and Bandstand (1972), Palmer's contribution moved from textural colour into structural foreground — including the jazz instrumental Crinkly Grin (Fearless), which Palmer described as "the easiest tune I ever wrote — done in 10 minutes," and the Bandstand string-and-vibe arrangements that anchor Top of the Hill and Bolero Babe.

He pioneered onstage synth use under genuinely difficult conditions. The EMS suitcase synths Family used had no visual tuners; their octaves drifted with stage-light heat or festival cold; Palmer was running his vibraphone through them via a custom mono-to-CV converter that didn't exist commercially. "Synths in those days were a bitch to tune… you also had to tune the octaves as well as the general pitch — imagine moving the bridge of a guitar up and down before playing!" The technical headache — and the band's late-tour exhaustion — contributed to his exit after the autumn 1972 US tour with Elton John. "We were running out of steam as a band — and probably individually too. The trees were starting to obscure the woods, and as you know, the band folded about a year later."

His asked-and-answered verdict on the lineup matters that surrounded him: "It's difficult for me to be objective about Family's sound, but I guess we all came from completely different musical styles yet enjoyed playing together." Of Charlie Whitney's contribution to what most listeners attributed to Palmer's progressive ear: "Charlie wrote some mean chords and rhythm timings."

Streetwalkers, the Shortlist, Chuck Farley (1974–1980s)

Post-Family, an attempted Ric Grech / Mitch Mitchell trio briefly took shape but never recorded. Palmer became, in his own description, "a bit of a studioholic" — multiple Streetwalkers sessions (Chapman/Whitney, 1974; Downtown Flyers, 1975; Vicious But Fair, 1977), and several Roger Chapman solo and live records (Chappo, Mail Order Magic, Mango Crazy and others) including extended European tours with The Shortlist through the 1980s. "Excellent musicians," he later said. "I compared a lot of other singers unfavourably to Roger. He's a hard act to follow."

Palmer also produced — most notably Isotope's second album Illusion (1975) and Henry McCullough's All Shook Up EP (Germany, 1982) — and co-wrote a 1974–75 rock opera, Hero, with Australian folk-poet Don Henderson and journalist Craig McGregor. Hero combined classical singers from the Sydney Opera House with rock vocalists across a four-week run; it didn't recoup, but it remains one of the more unusual entries in any Family alumnus's CV.

The longest-running of his side-projects was Chuck Farley — a loose, deliberately small London-pubs collective led by guitarist Steve Simpson. The original lineup ran Steve and Palmer alongside Boz Burrell, Geoff Whitehorn and Alan Coulter, and pressed exactly one limited (2,000-copy) live LP titled Chuck Farley — Live. The band kept reconvening intermittently into the 2000s and 2010s.

Human Error (1985)

Palmer's only solo album was Human Error, released on the German Erdenklang label in 1985. Uli Rützel, Erdenklang's boss, approached Palmer in Germany during a Shortlist tour, knowing he was deep into Fairlight CMI sampling work and electronic-vibe research, and asked if he'd do a label record. The result fused crisp mid-1980s jazz-fusion with Palmer's sampling experiments and African vocal samples; Geoff Whitehorn and Steve Simpson added guitars from the Shortlist circle. Palmer's wider listening at the time stayed remarkably consistent across his career: "Little Feat, Donald Fagen, Yellowjackets, David Sanborn — I'm a bit of an old reactionary. I'm still listening to the same artists I listened to twenty years ago."

Patrick Little of AllMusic later wrote that Human Error "delivers a fresh spin on the jazz fusion of the time" — a contemporary read that has held up better than most 1985 fusion records. There was a contractual provision for a second Erdenklang album, but Palmer told Weaver's Answer in 1999 there was "nothing in the pipeline." None ever followed.

The 2013–2016 reunions

Family reformed for two London shows on 1–2 February 2013, the first time most of the band had played together in forty years. Palmer was on the reunion lineup alongside Chapman, Rob Townsend and Jim Cregan — Charlie Whitney having declined Chapman's invitation from his Greek island. Reformation gigs followed across 2013–2016, including the Rockin' The Park festival at Clumber Park (16 August 2013). Palmer's vibes, flute and synthesisers re-anchored the sound for the small slate of comeback dates as cleanly as they had on the records themselves.

Legacy and recent loss

Palmer's death on 21 July 2025 at age 82 closed one of the most quietly inventive instrumental careers in British rock. Reader Joan Mary Timmins, writing the next month: "Really sorry to hear Poli has passed. Great guy. Love to his wife."

Looking back at the Family run, Palmer once described the band's working method with characteristic understatement:

> "The band never thought in terms of labels, so we didn't think it odd to put, say, a country fiddle with some expensive vibraphone voicings."

That sentence — country-fiddle-meets-vibraphone-as-a-default-mode — was Palmer's gift to Family. It is also a tidy summary of what he did everywhere else.

Selected discography

With Family (full pressing detail in the Family discography)

• A Song For Me (1970) · Anyway (1970) · Old Songs New Songs (1971) · Fearless (1971) · Bandstand (1972)

With Streetwalkers and Roger Chapman

• Streetwalkers — Chapman/Whitney (1974) · Downtown Flyers (1975) · Vicious But Fair (1977)
• Roger Chapman — Chappo (1979) · Mail Order Magic (1980) · Mango Crazy (1983), plus extensive Shortlist live work through the 1980s

Pre-Family

• The Hellions (1964–65, with Capaldi and Mason)
• Deep Feeling (1966, with Capaldi, Mason, Grosvenor, Jackson)
• Blossom Toes (1968 — between We Are Ever So Clean and If Only For A Moment; reissued via Think Like A Key Music)
• Eclection (October 1969, ~1 month before Family)

Solo

• Human Error — Erdenklang, 1985 (Fairlight CMI / electronic vibes / featured soloists)

Selected sessions and productions

• Iain Matthews — Southern Comfort (1969)
• Gordon Jackson — Thinking Back (1969, with Capaldi/Mason/Winwood/Driscoll/Grech/King/Wood)
• Linda Lewis — Lark (1972) · Fathoms Deep (1973)
• Isotope — Illusion (1975, producer)
• Peter Frampton — Frampton (1975) — on The Crying Clown
• Brian Eno / Pete Sinfield — From Ibiza (1979) — narration engineering and final mix
• Pete Townshend — All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982) — tuned percussion
• Henry McCullough — All Shook Up EP (Germany, 1982, producer)
• Co-author with Don Henderson and Craig McGregor — Hero rock opera (Sydney Opera House, 1974–75)

Collective / casual

• Chuck Farley (Steve Simpson + Palmer + Boz Burrell + Geoff Whitehorn + Alan Coulter, late 1970s onwards) — sole release Chuck Farley — Live (2,000-copy limited pressing)

Born: John Michael Palmer, May 1943, Worcester, England
Died: 21 July 2025, age 82
Family tenure: late 1969 – December 1972 · 2013–2016 reunions
Instruments: vibraphone, flute, electric piano, EMS synthesisers, congas, drums, occasional grand piano

Sources: Poli Palmer interview with Family Bandstand for The Weaver's Answer fanzine (1999); reader contributions in the comments below; AllMusic; Faulty Towers — John Bungey, MOJO (August 1996), in the Press Archive; Discogs.