Tom Robinson (born June 1, 1950, in Cambridge) is an English songwriter and broadcaster probably best-known for the UK hit songs "2-4-6-8 Motorway" (1977), "Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay" (1978) and "War Baby" (1983). June 1 is the 152nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (153rd in leap years), with 213 days remaining. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Shown within Cambridgeshire Geography Status: City (1951) Region: East of England Admin. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Career

Robinson was the founding member of the Tom Robinson Band (TRB), an overtly political band with several hits in the 1970s, such as "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Power in the Darkness". Tom Robinson began gigging in London in 1976 with a constantly shuffling lineup of musician friends backing him and by the end of the year, he had decided to put together a permanent band. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

Tom was an outspoken advocate of the gay movement in the 1970s and perhaps his best known song is "Glad to be Gay", originally written for a Pride rally in London in 1976, and which reached No.18 in the UK charts as part of TRB's Rising Free EP. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

In the 1980s he fronted and bankrolled Sector 27, a less political rock band which released one album - produced by Steve Lillywhite 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". With his various bands and solo he has released a dozen studio albums plus a variety of singles compilations, live CDs and limited edition, fanclub-only bootlegs known as the Castaway Club series. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Steve Lillywhite (born in 1955) is a well-known British music producer. ... Hamburgs motto: May the posterity endeavour with dignity to conserve the freedom, which the forefathers acquired. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A street performer on the Royal Mile, with volunteer (2004). ...

Since the late 1980s he has increasingly worked as a broadcaster and DJ on BBC Radio. He has presented programmes such as Home Truths, Pick Of The Week and The Locker Room - a longrunning series about men and masculinity - BBC Radio 4, and was awarded a Sony Academy Award in 1997 for "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" a documentary on gay music produced by Matthew Linfoot. He has also worked on Radios 1, 2, 3, 5 Live and BBC 6 Music - where he currently presents his own new music show with sessions and live music guests on Monday and Tuesday nights. BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. ... Home Truths is a weekly BBC Radio 4 programme which was created in 1997 and was originally hosted by the DJ and presenter John Peel until his death in October 2004. ... The Locker Room (formally The Tom Harris Chevrolet Locker Room) is a Canadian television show broadcasting from Nanaimo, British Columbia. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... BBC 6 Music is one of the BBCs newest radio stations, launched on March 11, 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It is only available via digital media - DAB radio, the Internet and the various forms of digital television. ...

He has become an advocate for a wider sexuality than his earlier potrayal as only a homosexual campaigner allowed - marrying a woman and starting a family. The family newspapers found this exceptionally amusing, with headlines such as "BRITAIN'S NO 1 GAY IN LOVE WITH GIRL BIKER" (The Sunday People) and "GLAD TO BE DAD" (The Sun). Robinson maintains that he suffered abuse from homosexual activists as a result. His last studio album Having It Both Ways (1996) included a short hidden track at the end of the record, sung acapella to the tune of his earlier hit Glad To be Gay, in which he sings about having spent 21 years fighting for gay liberation, ending with the line "I'm not gonna wear... a 'straight' jacket for you". The People, formerly known as the Sunday People, is a British red-top Sunday-only newspaper, owned by the Trinity Mirror Group. ... The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland with the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at 3,154,881 copies daily in early 2006 [1], (compared to USA Today, the best-selling US newspaper...

Robinson rarely performs live nowadays, apart from two annual free concerts, known as 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 Flemish. 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, The Bewley Brothers and Paleday alongside personal friends such as Lee Griffiths and T.V. Smith. Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 22 million people, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. ... Phil Beer and Steve Knightley Show Of Hands are an English acoustic roots duo comprised of singer-songwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer. ... Jakko M. Jakszyk (born Michael Lee Curran on June 8th 1958) is a guitarist and vocalist who has played with Level 42. ... Mark Stoney is a British musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. ... Roddy Frame (born January 29th 1964 in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire) is the founder of the 1980s Scottish pop band Aztec Camera. ... Paleday is a six-piece UK pop music band formed primarily from session musicians and strongly influenced by the gay scene in London. ... This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ... T.V. Smith (born Tim Smith on 5 April 1956) is a British punk rock singer songwriter who was part of the band, The Adverts, in the late 1970s. ...

He is also an enthusiastic proponent of Apple computers, which he has used extensively since the mid 1980s and in 1999/2000 was involved in celebrity seminar work for Apple to promote their home video editing software iMovie. Apple Computer, Inc. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

His brother is the television director and producer, Matthew Robinson. A television director is usually responsible for directing the actors and other taped aspects of a television production. ... A Television producer oversees the making of television penis programs. ... Matthew Robinson on the set of EastEnders Matthew Robinson (born 1944) is a British television director and producer. ...

Singles

• The Whitby Two-Step (1975)
• 2-4-6-8 Motorway (1977)
• Rising Free/Glad To Be Gay EP (1978)
• Too Good to be True (1978)
• Bully For You (1979)
• Never Gonna Fall in Love Again (1979)
• Not Ready (1980)
• Invitation (1980)
• Total Recall (1981)
• Now Martin's Gone (1982)
• War Baby (1983)
• Listen to the Radio (Atmospherics) (1983)
• Back in the Old Country (1984)
• Rikki Don't Lose That Number (1984 - Steely Dan Cover)
• Prison (1985)
• Nothing Like the Real Thing (1986)
• Still Loving You (1986)
• Feel So Good (1987)
• Spain (1987)
• Hard Cases (1988)
• Blood Brother (1990)
• Living In A Boom Time (1992)
• Hard (1994)
• Connecticut (1996)

Albums

• "Cafe Society" (1975)
• "Power In The Darkness" (1978)
• "TRB TWO" (1979)
• "Sector 27" (1980)
• "Tom Robinson Band" (1981)
• 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)

Jakko M. Jakszyk (born Michael Lee Curran on June 8th 1958) is a guitarist and vocalist who has played with Level 42. ...

See also

• Tom Robinson Band
• BBC 6 Music

Tom Robinson began gigging in London in 1976 with a constantly shuffling lineup of musician friends backing him and by the end of the year, he had decided to put together a permanent band. ... BBC 6 Music is one of the BBCs newest radio stations, launched on March 11, 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It is only available via digital media - DAB radio, the Internet and the various forms of digital television. ...

External links

• Tom Robinson's Official Webpage
• BBC 6 Music's Evening Sequence webpage
• Tom's blog on the Guardian