Robert Palmer’s first solo album marks the intersection of several extraordinary musical forces. Recorded in New Orleans, New York, and Nassau, Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley is a quintessentially American album, even though Palmer was a sharp-dressed Englishman. His dream collaborators were the New Orleans funk ensemble The Meters, Allen Toussaint, and Little Feat, and—thanks to Alabama-born producer Steve Smith—that’s exactly who he got for his first solo outing. Pairing Little Feat's Lowell George with The Meters was a stroke of genius. The ensemble invests George’s “Sailin’ Shoes” with a sleek, percolating groove that outperforms Little Feat’s much-loved original. The patience and stylishness that Palmer and company bring to “Get Outside,” “Hey Julia," and Toussaint’s “From a Whisper to a Scream” is a radical antidote to the overblown production methods of the mid-'70s. Homegrown, humid, and distinctly nontraditional, the atmosphere of Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley remains extraordinary even when compared with much better-known works by Leon Russell or Dr. John.