Robin's Biography

The Story so far...

Well, it’s all Dave Swarbrick’s fault…….

Robin performing live

In my late teens, I was quite happy to be like all my mates and listen to Yes, Pink Floyd, Wishbone Ash and others of that ilk - until someone played me a Fairport Convention album. And that changed everything!!

Then I bought the Dave Swarbick and Martin Carthy album ‘Rags, Reels and Airs’ and was zapped by it – especially by the mandolin playing. So, I bought my first ever mandolin for £10 and a tutor book, and never looked back!!

Of course, the £10 mandolin was almost unplayable – anywhere above the third fret required either the Incredible Hulk or a vice to hold the strings down. If I’d any sense I would have let that put me off forever and taken up something more sensible like fire-eating or lion-taming. But I’ve never been one to shirk a challenge….

Several mandolins later, I discovered bluegrass, which blew me away with the technique and the intensity of the playing. So, Dave Swarbrick started it, but Bill Monroe, Dave Grisman, Sam Bush and Jethro Burns (and the Jack Tottle Bluegrass Mandolin Tutor book) finished it!!!

At University at Nottingham I found some other like-minded people to jam with (many a happy hour spent with ‘Wreckless’ Eric Kwiatkowski and Martin Styles). We even put out some scratch bluegrass performances here and there (none of them very good, but it was fun!).

Then I moved to Huddersfield to start work where I teamed up with John Pontefract to play under the name ‘The Hungry Hill Mob’. We played mainly bluegrass-style stuff with John doing the singing and me putting in the solos. We had some fun taking bluegrass round the folk clubs of West and South Yorkshire. There were also some other outings with various bluegrass outfits in the Manchester area. But work at Huddersfield didn’t go very well and I moved to Stone.

Living at Stone put me back in touch with Nottingham and I teamed up with two people I’d known a bit in University days – Mark Tindle on guitar (sadly, no longer with us) and Pete Christian on electric bass as ‘The Last Detail’. We had some great times over seven or eight years playing western swing, bluegrass and some novelty stuff at folk clubs round the East and West Midlands and also did a couple of short tours to Belgium and the Netherlands.


Following the demise of the Last Detail, I played with a variety of outfits round Stafford involving local worthies such as Martin Thompson, Gillie Nicholls, Mel Ellis, Dave Camlin and others. We also had a ceilidh band running for a time. But, to be honest, this really wasn’t my thing and so I dropped out of the scene in the late 80’s and into semi-retirement.

To keep me doing a bit, I played every year for the Stone Little Theatre annual Pantomime in their ‘Orchestra’. Well, I say orchestra – there was me on mandolin, Angela Bromley on electronic organ and a variety of drummers. This is a very odd combination but seemed to work surprisingly OK. It forced me to play every type of music imagineable – everything from the ‘Birdie Song’ to Gilbert & Sullivan (and probably Gilbert O’Sullivan too!!!). Played for the pantomime over 20 times. It’s quite a challenge to adapt the mandolin to Lloyd Webber, current pop songs and stuff from ‘Les Miserables'.

But then about 5 years ago, my mate Jeff got me back into the folk scene as he’d started playing at a local singaround at the Spittal Brook in Stafford. I started going along just to do some tune sets, but then decided I might as well do some songs as well. Now it’s a weird concept to be a solo, singing mandolin player. But what the hell…..!!! And I’ve not looked back.

In the beginning, I picked songs up from various sources – mostly quite obscure – that suited the mandolin and had lyrics that stand out a bit. Major influences were (and still are) in no particular order….

But then I started to wonder if I could write some songs of my own. Kirsty McGee was a major inspiration behind starting out as a songwriter (thank you, Kirsty!!), and I was encouraged also by my good friend Gilly Brownhill. So now, a spot by Robin is likely to contain much more of my own stuff than other people’s!

Check out the lyrics section and the sound clips to get a feel for my own stuff…..

Who knows where this is going to lead!!! I haven’t got any idea, but it’s going to be fun finding out as I’ve never enjoyed playing and singing as much as I am currently!!! Watch out world, Robin and his mandolin are coming to get you……