The Robin Lane Biography

In popular music, there are a number of measures of success for recording artists. Often that success is predicated on following musical formulas dictated by major label bottom lines or by working within popular trends, formats and genres for cultural rather than musical reasons. Less frequently, we are exposed to artists whose success is less quantifiable by music industry standards, who can draw from cultural and musical trends without being defined by them, endure the vagaries of the music business, and continue to write, play, perform, and record simply because it is their special relationship with the music that is their success. Robin Lane is one such artist.

Robin was born and raised in the music and entertainment world of Los Angeles. Her mother was a model and her father a songwriter and musical director for Dean Martin. Early on in her teens, Robin began actively singing and performing in the nascent LA folk-rock scene. It was at this time that she began informal collaborations with the band Crazy Horse and Danny Whitten, who Robin cites as the critical force in her development as an artist. This association led to her more formal debut - singing with Neil Young on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Anxious to develop her own music and by her own account too young to fit in to a wild and overwhelming music and show business scene, Robin opted to leave LA for Pennsylvania farm country and finally Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It was in Cambridge in the late 70's, in an environment of cultural and intellectual experimentation that Robin was able to integrate Punk and New Wave influences, East Coast folk, and West Coast rock in her songs and her band -- the legendary Robin Lane and The Chartbusters. The band included ex-Modern Lovers Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe who infected Lane's songs and sensibilities even further with their unique and now historic garage sound. Robin Lane and The Chartbusters released three albums on Warner Brothers Records. The first, Robin Lane And The Chartbusters was released in 1980 to widespread critical acclaim. Singles "When Things Go Wrong" and "Why Do You Tell Lies?" received extensive national airplay. Their follow-up album, Imitation Life was also well received by the critics including Nat Hentoff who described Robin's vocals on this release as "...ominous, desperately tender, and cuttingly illuminating." Subsequently, the band released a 5-song live EP entitled 5 Live. They toured extensively, opening for The Kinks, The Cars, Split Enz (later Crowded House), Hall & Oats, and XTC, but mostly crisscrossing the country headlining shows of their own.

Despite the very positive critical attention, marketing and management mistakes occurring simultaneously with Robin's conscious decision to focus on her new-born daughter cost her and the Chartbusters their record contract.

During the late 80's and early 90's, Robin turned her attention to songwriting, penning songs for other artists including Susanna Hoffs (formerly of The Bangles) who recorded Robin's "Wishing On Telstar" on her 1991 release When You're A Boy. In addition Robin performed numerous times as a singer-songwriter opening for artists including Warren Zevon, John Hiatt, Taj Mahal, Tim Finn/Crowded House, Dave Mason, Steve Earle, and T-Bone Burnett.

In 1995 Robin released Catbird Seat -- her solo album and first release in over 10 years. Produced by Robin and Ducky Carlisle, the album shows the charm, wit, energy and special gift for melody that have always marked Robin's work. Catbird Seat is at times stripped down rock reminiscent of Crazy Horse. At others it can best be described as a soundscape -- layers of melody and harmony with imaginative voicings -- painting a picture of sophistication and elegance. It marked an important return by a superb artist.

These days find Robin in Woolly Mammoth studios in Boston working on a new CD with her new/old band, the re-formed Chartbusters. They will begin touring to support the CD just as soon as it's been completed and released.

Robin is also writing a memoir of her incredibly interesting life and the pitfalls of being a woman in the music business, especially one who chose to have a child at a time when women who rocked could not be both performers on stage and mothers. She has also begun a seminar entitled "Giving Youth A Voice" and is teaching it in Western Massachusetts, where she now lives.