Primary Wave partners with Robert Palmer estate to manage catalogue
Primary Wave has struck a partnership with the estate of Robert Palmer to help look after his publishing and recording catalogue.
The deal was announced on Tuesday, Sept. 22. It brings both sides of Palmer's music under one working arrangement: publishing, the songwriting and the rights in the songs as written, and recordings, the finished studio and live tracks that listeners buy and stream.
The agreement also includes a stake in Palmer's name, image and likeness rights. In practice, that category covers commercial use of an artist's name, photograph and likeness. The terms were reported by Billboard. No price was made public.
Palmer died from a heart attack in 2003. His recorded output ran to 14 studio albums and three live albums. A live album, in industry terms, is a recording taken from concert performances rather than studio sessions.
Three albums — Riptide, Heavy Nova and Addictions: Volume 1 — received platinum album certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America. The Association is the United States trade body that certifies recorded-music sales, with platinum marking a set sales threshold for an album. A certification counts sales and, for modern awards, streaming equivalents toward that threshold.
Palmer also won two Grammy Awards. Both were in the category of best male rock vocal performance. He won in 1987 for "Addicted to Love" and again in 1989 for "Simply Irresistible." The Grammys are annual music awards presented in the United States.
Primary Wave is a music company that works with song catalogues, recordings and artist rights. It says its wider catalogue includes more than 1,000 Top 10 singles and more than 400 number-one hits, according to Primary Wave. The company marked its 20th anniversary in 2026. An anniversary of that length points to two decades of building that catalogue.
Partnerships of this kind do not change who wrote or performed the songs. They concern how the existing rights are looked after. For listeners, the work usually sits behind the scenes. No specific reissues, licensed uses in film, television or advertising, or archive projects were detailed in the announcement.
