TOM Robinson is marking the 40th anniversary of his debut single 2-4-6-8 Motorway by paying tribute to the original Tom Robinson Band on his autumn tour.
Taking in 15 dates, including The Crescent in York on Wednesday, Robinson and his present band are performing TRB's 1978 punk album Power In The Darkness in its entirety each night.
Joining the BBC Radio 6 Music presenter on the road will be Faithless and Groove Armada drummer Andy Treacey and Richard Ashcroft's guitarist Adam Phillips, both of whom have played with Tom on and off for many years, plus keyboard player Professor Jim Simmons.
"I'm back on bass duties and it's nice to be back in a four-piece band playing fast and loud: it's been a surprise in rehearsal just how fast and loud these songs were," says Robinson, now 67, as he reconnects with Up Against The Wall, Ain't Gonna Take It and Right On Sister.
"It's been a surprise in rehearsal just how fast and loud these songs were," says Tom Robinson
"This is the chance to do these songs again as TRB did them, maybe for the last time, though I may do it again at 77 if I'm still around! I'm actually surprised how good these songs were, how they sounded, and realising that Danny Kustow was not just a mate from the therapeutic community [run by George Lyward at Finchden Manor] but was a really good guitarist, and my success owed so much to the band's power and passion."
Everything had happened so quickly, going from signing on at the dole office to Top Of The Pops and a top five chart position for 2-4-6-8 Motorway in only six weeks. The song had taken rather longer, however. "I'm quite a slow writer, and like most things I wrote, that song evolved over a few months.
"It started from me trying to build something from the chords of Couldn't Get It Right [the Climax Blues Band song] but I couldn't get it right, so it evolved into 2-4-6-8 Motorway, which started off as a country song with a country back-beat, till the producer [Vic Maile] just said, 'play four to the bar on the bass'," says Robinson.
"He'd produced Dr Feelgood, so he was a rock producer, brought in as a trouble-shooter for us as we'd tried to record it twice before but two sets of mixes were rejected and finally it was sent to Vic, who did the song in two takes in only three hours!"
The album artwork for the Tom Robinson Band's Power In The Darkness, released in May 1978
Robinson never did drive an "ol' ten ton lorry" or go "truckin' on thru the night". "It was sheer fantasy, though not an entire fantasy because I had a Luton Transit, which was quite a big vehicle to manoeuvre through London," he says.
The Tom Robinson Band made only two albums before the power fizzled out. "We were unstable individuals, so after two years it fell to bits, but the chemistry of the recordings has endured," says Robinson.
And as the motorway beckons once more, his journey to York will have extra resonance. "My mum and dad met in York," he says. "My mum was from Harrogate, my dad, from Lincoln, and they met at a ball in the De Grey Rooms. My dad spotted her, then lost sight of her, but then found she was standing next to him as she'd spotted him too!"
Tom Robinson & Band play Power In The Darkness at The Crescent, York, on Wednesday at 7.30pm. Box office: seetickets.com/event/tom-robinson-band/the-crescent/1079629
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