Tom Robinson

Early life

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. He played guitar in a trio at school called The Inquisition. Robinson has two brothers, including Matthew, and a sister.

At the age of 13, Robinson realised that he was gay when he fell in love with another boy at school. Until 1967, male homosexual activity was a crime in England, punishable by prison. He had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide at 16. A head teacher got him transferred to Finchden Manor, a therapeutic community, in Kent, for teenagers with emotional difficulties, where he spent his following six years. At the community, Robinson was inspired by John Peel's The Perfumed Garden on pirate Radio London, and by a visit from Alexis Korner. The blues musician and broadcaster transfixed a roomful of people, using nothing but his voice and an acoustic guitar. The whole direction of Robinson's life and career became suddenly clear to him.

Career

In 1973, Robinson moved to London and joined the acoustic trio Café Society. They impressed Ray Davies, of The Kinks, enough for him to sign them to his Konk label and produce their debut album. According to Robinson, Davies's other commitments made the recording a lengthy process and, after it sold only 600 copies, he left the band.

Subsequently, when the Tom Robinson Band were playing at the Nashville Rooms in London, Robinson saw Davies enter and sarcastically performed The Kinks' hit "Tired of Waiting for You". Davies retaliated with a mocking Kinks song "Prince of the Punks" (released as a B-side of "Father Christmas") about Robinson. Robinson, in turn, wrote "Don't Take No For An Answer" about Davies's hindering his career, later released on the Rising Free EP.

In London, Robinson became involved in the emerging gay scene and embraced the politics of gay liberation, which linked gay rights to wider issues of social justice. Inspired by an early Sex Pistols gig, he founded the more political Tom Robinson Band in 1976. 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 included his anthemic song "Glad to Be Gay", originally written for a 1976 London gay pride parade. The song was banned by the BBC. It did receive extensive daytime play on Capital Radio. In May 1978, the band released their 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 (1979), 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 on the album The Fox. He played two songs live— "Glad to Be Gay" and "1967 (So Long Ago)" — during June of that year at The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979).

In 1980, Robinson organised Sector 27, a less political rock band that released a critically acclaimed but unsuccessful album, Sector 27, 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, in debt, and sorrowing from a breakup with a beau, Robinson fled to Hamburg, Germany, much like his idol David Bowie, who had 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. He also released a German-language single, "Tango an der Wand" ("Tango at the Wall"), with lyrics by Horst Königstein, a director and screenwriter who had also written the lyrics to Peter Gabriel's German albums. However, the single failed to have a commercial impact.

Personal life

Robinson does not identify exclusively as gay. He has had past experiences with women and has said that he has always made it clear that he liked both men and women. He now identifies as bisexual, but in the past he used the phrase 'gay', synonymous with 'queer', to encompass the entire LGBT community. In an interview, he stated that he used the term "gay" because, "as far as Joe Public is concerned, if you're interested in other guys you're a queer... to call ourselves bi-sexual is a cop-out."

A longtime supporter and former volunteer of London's Gay Switchboard help-line, it was at a 1982 benefit party for the organisation that Robinson met Sue Brearley, the woman with whom he would eventually live and have two children, and later marry.

In the mid-1990s, when Robinson became a father, the tabloids ran stories about what they deemed as a sexual orientation change, running headlines such as "Britain's Number One Gay in Love with Girl Biker!" (The Sunday People). Robinson continued to identify as a gay man, telling an interviewer for The Guardian: "I have much more sympathy with bisexuals now, but I am absolutely not one." He added, "Our enemies do not draw the distinction between gay and bisexual."

In a 1994 interview for The Boston Globe newspaper, Robinson said: "We've been fighting for tolerance for the last 20 years, and I've campaigned for people to be able to love whoever the hell they want. That's what we're talking about: tolerance and freedom and liberty—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So if somebody won't grant me the same tolerance I've been fighting for for them, hey, they've got a problem, not me."

In 1996 Robinson released an album Having It Both Ways. On it, he added a verse to "Glad to Be Gay", in which he sings: "Well if gay liberation means freedom for all, a label is no liberation at all. I'm here and I'm queer and do what I do, I'm not going to wear a straitjacket for you." In 1998, his epic album about bisexuality, Blood Brother, won three awards at the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards in New York.

Activism

Robinson is a supporter of Amnesty International and Peter Tatchell's OutRage! human rights organisation. He was also a leader of the Rock Against Racism campaign.

In popular culture

A fictionalised version of Tom Robinson, portrayed by Mathew Baynton, appears in the last episode of the first series of the BBC One television drama Ashes to Ashes, as leader at a Gay Liberation Front protest in London. The character is later incarcerated with other protestors by the time-travelling protagonist, Detective Inspector Alex Drake (played by Keeley Hawes) and dismisses her claims that he will one day marry a woman. The scene supposedly takes place on 9 October 1981, precisely fourteen months before the real Tom Robinson met his future bride.

The character then leads other protestors in singing a round of "Glad to Be Gay" in the confinement facility, much to Sergeant Viv James' annoyance. "2-4-6-8 Motorway" is also used in the soundtrack during the protest after Detective Sergeant Ray Carling sings a few bars to Alex, who then proceeds to drive a pink tank over a parked Ford Escort, which she believes would otherwise have later been used in a car bombing. Robinson's song "War Baby" (which he premiered the night he met his wife) is used in the soundtrack of the third series.

Finnish rock-group Popeda released their debut album by the same name in 1978. On the album there's a song called "Oodi Tom Robinsonille" (Ode to Tom Robinson). The song was written by bass player Ilari "Ilpo" Ainiala. Band's vocalist Pate Mustajärvi sings: "Hän laulaa meille niistä, jotka ketään eivät riistä, mutta silti saavat muiden tuomion." The refrain follows: "Tom-Tom-Tom-Tom. Tom Robinson, sä tuot voimaa tähän pimeyteen! Tom-Tom-Tom-Tom. Tom Robinson, siksi sulle oman laulun teen!" In English this goes along the lines, freely translated: "He sings us about those who deprive none, but still gets damned by everyone. Tom... Tom Robison, through the darkness you help us go on. Tom... Tom Robinson, that's why I made you this song". The melody and song structure actually resembles a lot of TRB's song "2-4-6-8 Motorway", which was released in 1977. By coincidence or not, this bit in the Finnish lyrics, "voimaa pimeyteen" (power into the darkness), almost literally means the same as Power in the Darkness, the name of the debut album of the Tom Robinson Band released in early 1978.

Discography

Over his career, Robinson has released more than twenty albums either as a solo performer or as a member of a group. He has also released fanclub-only bootlegs known as the Castaway Club series.

Albums

North by Northwest (1982)

Hope and Glory (1984) – peaked at No. 21 in the UK Albums Chart

Still Loving You (1986)

The Collection (1987)

Last Tango: Midnight at the Fringe (1988)

We Never Had It So Good (1990, with Jakko Jakszyk)

Winter of '89 (1992, bootlegged as Motorway: Live)

Living in a Boom Time (1992)

Love over Rage (1994)

Having It Both Ways (1996)

The Undiscovered Tom Robinson (1998)

Home from Home (1999)

Smelling Dogs (2001, spoken word album)

Only the Now (2015)

Singles

Song compositions

"Elton's Song" (lyrics by Tom Robinson, with music by Elton John)

"Talk About It In The Morning" (Martyn Joseph/Tom Robinson)

"He Never Said" (Martyn Joseph/Tom Robinson)