Tom Palmer

Tom Palmer

Tom Palmer is a British folk and acoustic musician from Yorkshire, with roots in Pontefract. He builds his career around songwriting, guitar playing and a travelling singer-songwriter tradition, and gains a small cult following through years of extensive touring.

Early life and musical beginnings

As a teenager, Palmer starts out trying to follow the example of Bob Dylan and Eric Burdon. Singing comes about almost by accident while he teaches friends guitar parts by speaking the words to songs. As those spoken lines turn into chords, bars and then full songs, he becomes the singer in the band. He later also sings for extra money in the hotel bar where he works as a chef.

Style and career

Palmer is known for dark, deep vocals and strong guitar work. He performs in pubs and clubs across Yorkshire, then expands into his own full touring band. His career includes performances at Glastonbury, the Cambridge Folk Festival and Cornwall’s Elephant Fair, as well as work that reaches audiences described as kings, paupers and even 13th-century France. He is also said to have featured in Shakespeare.

Albums and songwriting

His album Kickin Back is recorded over nine months on the banks of Bewl Water in Kent. The songs are written on the beaches of Penang and around the South China Seas, drawing on experiences from travel in Asia after a nine-month tour of Australia. The material focuses on love, lust, wild nights and other experiences gathered while travelling and singing nightly around beach fires.

Palmer sees himself as continuing the old troubadour tradition, using songs to pass on stories and experiences from one place and culture to another.