Amampondo
Hamid Baroudi
Black Umfolosi
Burnt
Horace X
Hoven Droven
Jaipur Kawa Brass Band
Kanenhi:io Singers
Kevin Breit
and the Sisters Euclid
Les Batinses
Mighty Popo
Sarah Jane Morris
Tom Robinson
Donné Roberts
Madagascar Slim
Tons Of Fun University
Tri-Continental
Sui Vesan
Warsaw Village Band
In 1974 Ray Davies signed gay British songwriter Tom Robinson to his label Konk as part of the acoustic harmony trio Café Society, and produced the group's debut album. By working at close quarters with The Kinks, Robinson learned much about stagecraft and songwriting.
His next group TRB (Tom Robinson Band) stormed the British charts in 1977 with their anthemic pop single '2-4-6-8 Motorway' and were quickly hailed by New Musical Express 'as the most important new band in Britain'. The band were early supporters of Rock Against Racism and Amnesty International and their second single "Glad To Be Gay" reached the UK Top 20 despite a total ban by BBC Radio.
It was followed by their debut album "Power In The Darkness" which went gold in the UK and Japan. Rolling Stone's Dave Marsh described it as "...the most convincing fusion of rock & roll and politics in years...." The highpoint of Robinson's U.S. career came when his subsequent band Sector 27 supported The Police at Madison Square Garden and LA Forum in 1981. He also wrote lyrics for two albums by Elton John.
A nervous breakdown and near-bankruptcy brought this phase to an end, and Robinson fled to East Berlin to pick up the pieces. There he wrote the hit singles "War Baby" and "Atmospherics: Listen to the Radio" (a collaboration with Peter Gabriel) which resulted in further UK chart successes and a brief, stormy relationship with Geffen Records - who released his 1985 album "Hope And Glory" in North America only after censoring its original Vietnam-inspired cover.
Since then Robinson has released a further 12 albums in Europe and had hits in Belgium, Italy and Holland with " Spain", "Still Loving You" and "Hard" - the last in 1994. He's become bisexual, fathered two children and hosted of a groundbreaking series for Radio Four, the BBC' national speech radio network. The Locker Room, a Saturday night programme for and about men, ran 1992-6 for six series.
20 years after the BBC first banned "Glad To Be Gay" Tom Robinson has won a gold medal for the Corporation at the prestigious 1997 Sony UK Radio Awards, ironically for a gay music documentary entitled "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and since broadcast on American PBS. The judges said: "TR is passionate without being overbearing; economy of words inthe script made this an exceptional listen..."
