Born in 1940 into a house filled with his mothers singing - music soon became a great part of his life. In the mid 1950's he learned the guitar formed a skiffle group like many boys of that time inspired by people like Lonnie Donegan. This guitar playing soon created an invitation to join a rock band and by 1960 The Presidents were gathering quite a following in the pubs and clubs in South London. In 1964 Decca released the bands first and only single Let the Sun Shine with Candy Man as the B side. Candy Man should have been the bands A side but sadly Decca had passed the song to their most established act Brian Poole and the Tremeloes and The Presidents version was relegated to the B side. This rather unpleasant act on Decca's behalf caused the band to become a little disillusioned by the music industry and after a year or so the band folded and Robin emigrated to South Africa.
On returning he married his long loved girlfriend Mardy (Margaret) Hibberd and spent a couple of years as a pharmaceutical rep. Becoming tired with this and longing to get back into music he became roadie and sound engineer for a band called Tucky Buzzard produced by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. The Stones knew The Presidents well and had shared the Red Lion pub gig in Sutton Surrey many times. Tucky Buzzard, who owned a unique Turner PA system, signed with the same management company that had just signed David Bowie. David loved the sound of the Turner system and as he became his Alta ego 'Ziggy Stardust' Robin got the front of house sound engineering job and did every show till Bowie broke up the band in 1973. Robin continued to work with many artists of the seventies including Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, David Essex, Blondie, The Stranglers and during the Punk explosion produced the highly rated album Pure Mania for The Vibrators.
With the start of the 1980's and now 40 touring was taking its toll and once again Robin turned away from music and over the next 29 years undertook a variety professions from retail to hotelier and back to retail but all the time tinkering with his first love music. In 2009 and now running an events equipment hire business www.wsee.co.uk he was asked to write some songs for a young girl singing country music. Out of this meeting the song Refuse to Lose was born as he became aware that in many young people of today there is very little drive and ambition. The recent riots in London and other cities in the UK have been blamed, in part, on the fact that there is a feeling of utter despair amongst huge sections of our society. The realization that the Olympic Games will be staged in London in 2012 made him see that with a project aimed at all people, young and older, and with Olympic dedication and success as a symbol it would be a way to inspire everybody to plan, focus and achieve their goals in life.
To read more about Robin's back story check out The Presidents web site at www.the-presidents.org.uk |
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 Robin in his West Sussex Studio
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