Famous Like Me > Writer > R > Tom Robinson
Profile of Tom Robinson
on Famous Like Me |
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| Name: |
Tom Robinson |
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| Also Know As: |
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| Date of Birth: |
1st June 1950 |
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| Place of Birth: |
Cambridge, England, UK |
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| Profession: |
Writer |
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From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Tom Robinson (born June 1, 1950, Cambridge, UK) is a British musician and DJ. Robinson was the founding member of the Tom Robinson Band, an overtly political band with several hits in the 1970s, such as "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Power in the Darkness".
Robinson's other best known song is "Glad to be Gay", and he was an outspoken hero of the gay movement in the 1970s.
In the 1980s he fronted Sector 27, another highly political rock band which released one album and left Robinson virtually bankrupt. He fled to Hamburg to escape his creditors where he penned his 1983 hit "War Baby" and released his first solo album "North By Northwest". His return to the UK led to late-night performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, some of which later surfaced on the live album "Midnight at the Fringe".
In 1985 found a new career as a DJ for a variety of radio stations including BBC Radio 1 (standing in for Janice Long), BBC Radio 4 (The Locker Room from 1992-1995), and the BBC World Service. Currently he can be heard on weekday evenings on BBC 6 Music presenting The Evening Sequence, and occasionally BBC Radio 4's programme Home Truths since the death of John Peel.
He later identified as bisexual, marrying a woman and starting a family. The newspapers found this exceptionally amusing, with headlines such as "BRITAIN'S N0 1 GAY IN LOVE WITH GIRL BIKER" (The Sunday People) and "GLAD TO BE DAD" (The Sun).
Robinson rarely performs nowadays, save for two annual parties for his fan-base "The Castaway Club", which take place in South London and Belgium in January every year. The Castaway Parties invariably feature a wide variety of established and unknown artists and groups such as Paleday and TV Smith.
He is also a proponent of Apple computers, and has used them extensively in his work since the mid-1980s.
His brother is the television director and producer Matthew Robinson.
Singles
- War Baby (1983)
- Listen To The Radio: Atmospherics (1983)
- Rikki Don't Lose That Number (1984)
Albums
- North By Northwest (1982)
- Cabaret '79: Glad To Be Gay (1982)
- Hope and Glory (1984, later reissued as War Baby: Hope and Glory)
- 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)
Related articles
- Tom Robinson Band
- BBC 6 Music
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