Rod Palmer, Houlton’s man of music

One of Houlton’s finest men of music turned 90, Aug. 22 and was recognized for his talent and his life  last Thursday evening during the final concert of the season for McGill’s Band.
    Rodney Palmer was born into a musical family in Island Falls. His father Kenneth played the cornet and his mother Pearl played the piano. Palmer and his siblings, all good musicians, grew up singing and playing together several evenings a week in their home.
When Rod was 12 or 13, he began to play cornet with his father in the Island Falls town band; many was the afternoon he rushed home after school to practice in the attic. He joined Ronald Martin’s Island Falls dance band at the age of 14, a gig that lasted through high school and took him to all the local dance halls, including Birch Point and Nickerson Lake Pavilions.
In 1937, the summer after Rodney’s graduation, Floyd Cropley from Danforth was putting together a dance band made up of mostly Boston musicians. He heard about the young trumpet player and invited him to audition, so his father gave him a tuxedo and put him on a bus to Newport to try out. Rod spent that summer traveling the state in an eight-passenger Buick with instruments strapped to the top, playing such venues as Skowhegan, Dover Foxcroft and Long Lake near Portage.
The pay was minimal and the work was hard, but it was great music and Rodney learned much from the other band members.
By the time he entered Ricker Junior College that fall, Rod had started arranging music. College band director, Harold Inman put that gift to use, paying him $50 to arrange several songs for the pep band. Rod also formed a band of his own at Ricker, playing for school dances and balls.
Rod continued playing, arranging and leading bands after graduation. He worked for Paul Jackins Potato Brokers in Houlton, but his weekends and evenings were filled with music, playing with a variety of individuals and groups. He took a week’s vacation to tour New Hampshire with the Paul Wallace Band out of Boston.
Rodney also formed his own dance band that played through the 1940s and often included students, such as Carl Young, Bob Hogan, Charlie Wood and Gordon Bither, as well as adults. Sometimes his wife, Janice sang with the band.
From the dance hall at Knowles Corner to Ginns Pavilion near Fort Fairfield to the University of Maine fraternities, the Rodney Palmer Band entertained with jazz and swing tunes arranged by their leader.
He also played through the ‘40s and ‘50s, with other musicians of Houlton, including pianist Coretta Ingraham, Mose Wise, Buck Morris, Paul Davenport, Chick Currie and Oscar Grant. He also played with Bert Wetmore, Emmons Robinson and Joe Robinson. Still later he teamed up with Paul LaPointe, Scott Emack and Tim Humphrey playing wedding receptions and special events. He has been a member of McGill’s Band for more than 20 years.
While the music of Rodney’s childhood home surrounded him and an early teacher introduced him to the scale, Rod is largely self-taught. His own reading, the attention he paid to other musicians with whom he worked and his personal experience playing and arranging all supplemented his enormous gift for music.
Included in the instruments he has played are trumpet, piano, flute and trombone. An enormous piano and a string bass occupied much of the tiny apartment in which he and Janice started out; a Hammond B organ, along with a variety of musical equipment, have also filled their homes.
Rod plays and transposes by ear as well as by reading music and he has a talent for hearing a tune, such as an old radio ‘Hit Parade’ song his wife might sing for him and writing it down.
His own arrangements lost tragically in a fire in 1948, included the interesting harmonies and instrumentations that fascinated him. While his forte is jazz, he learned at different times be-bop and early rock styles, Latin rhythms and Dixieland.
Rodney Palmer continues to play, continues to learn from other musicians and continues to share his music with style and spirit. At 90 years old, surely he is a gift and a blessing, a special part of the Music Town of Maine.