Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is a rock musician and radio presenter Tom Robinson. In the late 1970 he was embraced by the gay rights movement when he sang "Glad to Be Gay", but later in the 1990's found himself the subject of controversy when he chose to live and later marry a woman and have children together.

Tom Robinson was born into a middle-class family in Cambridge, England on June 1, 1950. His first musical experience was as a choirboy growing up. In 1963, as just shy of the British invasion a thirteen year old teenager realized he was gay. And progressive as the music in British was becoming it was not so for gay rights. At the time penalties in England for same-sex sexual activity included prison terms. Pretty frightening for a young boy coming of age and into the understanding of his sexuality. At 16, Robinson had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. An understanding head teacher got him transferred to a pioneering therapeutic community for disturbed adolescents in Kent.

There at Finchden Manor, he was inspired by John Peel's Perfumed Garden on pirate Radio London, and a visit from musician 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 future life and career became suddenly clear.

Robinson moved to London when he was 23 and founded the trio Café Society. The Kink's Ray Davies helped the group with their first album, but it sold only six hundred copies. While in London he became involved in the gay rights movement and in combating sexism and racism, causes that he continues to champion to this day. In 1976, inspired by an early Sex Pistols gig he left Café Society and founded the more political Tom Robinson Band. The following year the group put out the hit single "2-4-6-8 Motorway," which alludes obliquely to a gay truck driver, and "Glad to Be Gay," which was embraced by gay audiences and banned by the BBC.

The band had success with their album Power in the Darkness (1978), but their sophomore outing was a failure, after which the group split.

He later organized a new band, Sector 27, that produced a well-reviewed but not particularly successful album. The band nevertheless received an enthusiastic reception at a Madison Square Garden concert with The Police. But trouble befell the group their management company went bankrupt, the band disintegrated, and Robinson suffered another nervous breakdown. Desolate and in debt, Robinson moved to Germany, doing music in East Berlin.

In 1982 he wrote "War Baby" about divisions between East and West. It spent nine weeks on the Top Ten charts in the UK and revived his career. Returning to Great Britian, he started performing in cabarets in Scotland. A producer from the BBC saw him and tapped him to become the host of a BBC World Service radio show.

A longtime supporter of and former volunteer for London's Gay Switchboard help-line, was attending a 1982 benefit for the organization when he met the woman with whom he would eventually marry and have two children.

When Robinson became a first time father, the Brit tabloid press had a field day, blaring the news with the headline "Britain's Number One Gay in Love with Girl Biker!" The gay press reviled him, but he continued to identify as a gay man, telling an interviewer for the Manchester Guardian, "I have much more sympathy with bisexuals now, but I am absolutely not one." He added that "our enemies do not draw the distinction between gay and bisexual."

In a 1994 interview with the Boston Globe, he 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."

He has become an advocate for a wider sexuality than his earlier potrayal as only a homosexual campaigner allowed. Starting with his musical career with "Glad To Be Gay", he rounded it off twenty years later with an album cheerfully titled "Having It Both Ways" in 1996. In 1998 his bisexual epic "Blood Brother" won in three categories at the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards in New York.

Over the past twenty years Robinson has become better known as a broadcaster than as a musician. In 1986 a radio producer offered him his own series on the BBC World Service. Highly unusual, Robinson has presented programs on all the BBC's national stations: Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5Live. He fronted The Locker Room, a series about men and masculinity, for Radio 4 in the early nineties and later hosted the Home Truths tribute program to John Peel a year after the musician's death. He also produced a show in 1994 that came from his personal experience, writing and presenting it himself called Surviving Suicide.

With producer by Matthew Linfoot he won a Sony Radio Award in 1997 with the gay music documentary You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, and currently hosts his own show on BBC 6, and freelances on Radio 2 (Mark Radcliffe show) and Radio 4 (Something Understood, Pick Of The Week).

In addition to doing radio work, he continues to tour. He has moved to a more mellow sound, playing acoustic guitar in his concerts, and even includes some spoken-word pieces in his performances. He knows, however, that his fans turn out to hear his classic songs, and so his signature tune, "Glad to Be Gay," remains in his repertoire, although he updates it to reflect current events.

He is also an active supporter of Amnesty International, The National Assembly Against Racism and The Samaritans along with Peter Tatchell's Outrage! campaign among others.



A Sunday addition to the Out Spotlight, this past week on a show called "What Would You Do" , which creates social experiments and videos how people react when they don't know they're being watched.

This past week the presented a situation where gay parents were refused a meal in a restaurant. What would you do?

(For those outside of the US not sure if you can watch it because of broadcasting rights here's hoping you can watch this video)
(Thanks Wicked for passing this on to be a part of the Spotlight)