Tom Robinson - Biography

Biography

Tom Robinson was born into a middle-class family in Cambridge on 1 June 1950. He attended Friends School Saffron Walden, a co-ed privately funded Quaker school, between 1961 and 1967. Robinson has two brothers and a sister: Matthew (former executive producer of BBC One's EastEnders and Byker Grove, currently running Khmer Mekong Films in Cambodia), George and Sophy.

At the age of 13, Robinson realised that he was gay when he fell in love with another boy at school. At that time, male homosexual activity was still a crime in England, punishable by prison. Wracked with shame and self-hatred, he had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide at 16. A head teacher got him transferred to Finchden Manor, a therapeutic community for disturbed teenagers in Kent, where he spent his following six years. At Finchden Manor, Robinson was inspired by John Peel's The Perfumed Garden on pirate Radio London, and by a visit from Alexis Korner. The legendary bluesman and broadcaster transfixed a roomful of people with nothing but his voice and an acoustic guitar. The whole direction of Robinson's life and career became suddenly clear to him.

In 1973, Robinson moved to London and joined the acoustic trio Café Society. They impressed Ray Davies of The Kinks enough for him to produce their debut album, though it sold only 600 copies. The working relationship with Davies supposedly ended when, infuriated by Davies' lack of punctuality, Robinson sarcastically performed The Kinks' hit "Tired of Waiting for You" to him when he finally arrived at the studio. Davies retaliated with the less-than-complimentary Kinks single "Prince of the Punks", about Robinson. In London, Robinson became involved in the emerging gay scene and embraced the politics of gay liberation, which linked gay rights to the wider issues of social justice.

Inspired by an early Sex Pistols gig, he left Café Society in 1976, and founded the more political Tom Robinson Band. The following year the group released the single "2-4-6-8 Motorway", which peaked at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks. The song alludes obliquely to a gay truck driver. In February 1978, the band released the live extended play Rising Free, which peaked at No. 18 in the UK Singles Chart and spawned the hit "Glad to Be Gay", originally written for a 1976 London gay pride parade. The song was banned by the BBC. In May 1978, the band released its debut album, Power in the Darkness, which was very well received, peaking at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart, and receiving a gold certification by the BPI. Their second album, TRB Two, however, was a commercial and critical failure, and the band broke up four months after its release.

In 1979, Robinson co-wrote several songs with Elton John, including his minor hit "Sartorial Eloquence (Don't Ya Wanna Play This Game No More?)" which peaked at No. 39 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and a song about a young boy in boarding school who has a crush on an older student called "Elton's Song". It was recorded, but not released until 1981 in the album "The Fox".

In 1980, Robinson organised Sector 27, a less political rock band that released a critically acclaimed but unsuccessful album produced by Steve Lillywhite. The band nevertheless received an enthusiastic reception at a Madison Square Garden concert with The Police. However, their management company went bankrupt, the band disintegrated, and Robinson suffered another nervous breakdown. Desolate and in debt, Robinson fled to Hamburg, Germany, much like his idol David Bowie escaped to Berlin at a low point in his life. Living in a friend's spare room, he began writing again and ended up working in East Berlin with local band NO55.

In 1982, Robinson penned the song "War Baby" about divisions between East and West Germany, and recorded his first solo album North By Northwest with producer Richard Mazda. "War Baby" peaked at No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart and at No. 1 in the UK Indie Chart for three weeks, reviving his career. His following single, "Atmospherics (Listen To The Radio)", peaked at No. 39 in the UK Singles Chart and provided him further income when it was covered by Pukka Orchestra in 1984. The Pukkas' version was a top 20 hit in Canada under the title "Listen To The Radio".

Robinson's return to Britain led to late-night performances in cabarets at the Edinburgh Fringe, some of which later surfaced on the live album Midnight at the Fringe. His career enjoyed a resurgence in the mid 90s with a trio of albums for the respected folk/roots label Cooking Vinyl and a Glastonbury performance in 1994. In 1986, a BBC producer offered him his own radio show on the BBC World Service. Since then, Robinson has unusually presented programmes on all the BBC's national stations: Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4 5 Live and 6 Music. He has presented The Locker Room, a long-running series about men and masculinity, for Radio 4 in the early 1990s, and later hosted the Home Truths tribute to John Peel a year after his death in 2004. In 1997, he won a Sony Academy Award for You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, a radio documentary about gay music, produced by Benjamin Mepsted. He currently presents his own show on 6 Music, featuring live music sessions, on Monday and Tuesday nights, and freelances on Radio 2's Mark Radcliffe Show and Radio 4's Something Understood, and Pick of the Week. In 1994 he wrote and presented Surviving Suicide, about his suicide attempt.

Currently, Robinson rarely performs live, apart from two annual free concerts, known as the Castaway Parties, for members of his mailing list. These take place in South London and Belgium every January. In the Belgian Castaway shows, he introduces many songs in Dutch. The Castaway Parties invariably feature a wide variety of established and unknown artists and groups who have included Show Of Hands, Philip Jeays, Jan Allain, Jakko Jakszyk, Stoney, Roddy Frame, Martyn Joseph, The Bewley Brothers and Paleday alongside personal friends such as Lee Griffiths and T. V. Smith.

Robinson played "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Glad to Be Gay" at the BBC introducing stage on the Friday afternoon of the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, after announcing that The Coral would not be showing as they were 'stuck in the mud'.