Tom Robinson first became known in the 1970s as a musician and LGBT activist. Now a full-time broadcaster with BBC Radio 6 Music, he has just released his first album in 19 years.
Born in 1950, Tom first became known in the late 1970s as a musician and LGBT activist with the Tom Robinson Band. TRB’s best known hits were 2-4-6-8 Motorway, Don’t Take No For An Answer, Glad To Be Gay and Up Against The Wall. The band were also early supporters of Rock Against Racism and Amnesty International, and their debut album Power In The Darkness went gold in the UK and Japan.
Between 1975 and 2001 Tom has released 19 albums with various bands, and co-written songs with Elton John, Dan Hartman and Manu Katché among others. As a solo artist he had further solo UK hits in 1983 with War Baby and Atmospherics: Listen To The Radio (co-written with Peter Gabriel).
Now a full-time broadcaster with BBC Radio 6 Music, he has won two Sony Radio Academy awards and served for 15 years on the Ivor Novello Awards committee. In 2015 he released his first new album in two decades, Only The Now - which featured collaborations with John Grant, Billy Bragg, Nadine Shah, Ian McKellen, Nitin Sawhney, Lisa Knapp, Martin Carthy, Colin FIrth and TV Smith among others and was produced by Gerry Diver.