Tom Robinson: 'I'm going to miss it. Of course I am. But I can't think of anyone I'd rather give up the slot to'

An interview with Tom Robinson as — on the day of his 75th birthday, and after 14 years — his last ever Now Playing airs on 6 Music

I don’t want to dwell on the demise of cherished programmes, but after my post on Short Cuts, I couldn’t allow another era to end without marking it — and that’s the 6 Music show Now Playing that Tom Robinson has presided over for the past 14 years.

Today is Tom’s 75^th birthday — many happy returns, Tom — and tonight at 6 o’clock is his last ever Now Playing. Its axing saddens me deeply because I’ve always loved the show and the format is so great — a theme of the week, with listeners messaging in with their ideas for tracks — and in Tom it’s had a presenter whose warmth, enthusiasm and responsiveness to his audience are, in my view, unsurpassed on the radio. And early Sunday evenings is somehow perfect timing for such a show.

It takes a very special kind of ego — or lack of ego — for a presenter to so throw themselves into a show entirely curated by listeners, but in many ways that’s been the story of Tom’s radio career, in which as well as Now Playing he has become synonymous with BBC Introducing ­— the project to give air time to new, up-and-coming acts, which was a key element in the Saturday night show Tom used to also present. The number of young musicians who owe a debt to Tom’s selflessness and support is incalculable.

Tom has been kind enough to spare Sceptred Dial some time in which to reflect on Now Playing and on his wider career as a musician, and the conversation did nothing to lessen my admiration for him. In part that’s because, while extremely sad to lose the show, he is impressively understanding of 6 Music’s decision and magnanimous in the welcome he gives to his successor in the slot. That presenter is Mary-Anne Hobbs, returning to 6 Music after a few months’ absence, though the Now Playing concept will be no more.

“I have to put myself in the shoes of the people who make these decisions,” Tom told me. “The nature of management is juggling all sort of things. I feel it’s a strange decision in some ways because Now Playing’s listener figures are up but I understand that there are other considerations.” To the extent that Mary-Anne’s arrival breaks up a run of seasoned male presenters on the 6 Music Sunday — Guy Garvey, Iggy Pop and Stuart Maconie — “it makes sense”. It certainly isn’t a “personal vendetta”, Tom said. “Sam [Samantha Moy, head of 6 Music] has always been lovely to me — very generous with me deputising on other shows.” And those “deps” will continue.

Now Playing’s arrival back in 2011 came at a time when Tom was in many ways ahead of the game in grasping the role that the internet could play in revolutionising how musicians could reach a potential public. He was all over My Space when it was filled with new artists posting their music, and with BBC Introducing, Tom could help usher in a whole new era.

“The music industry exists by inserting itself between the artists and the consumers,” Tom explained. “As many people as possible are there to cream off the money — managers, agents, publishers, lawyers, rehearsal room staff, studios, producers, engineers, tour managers, pluggers — the list goes on. My vision was to cut out the middle men – and they were mostly men – and help listeners connect with the artists.”

It was a scandal, Tom said, if a “necessary scandal”, that artists would have to pay to have a plugger to bring their music to the attention of a radio station, with no guarantee that the act’s music would actually be played. Tom sitting down and listening to maybe 200 tracks a week and then choosing the best to air helped change all that. “I was very keen on the way the internet was transforming the chances of musicians getting their work heard.”

I asked Tom the inevitable question about who he was proudest of having discovered. “Well — there’s a lot of mythology about ‘discovering’ people. Generally people who go on to be very successful were always going to do that. Yes, we might lay claim to Florence and the Machine, or George Ezra, say, but the fact that a particular show might have played them first doesn’t give them a claim on ‘discovering’ them.”

A similar spirit of connectedness underpinned the Now Playing concept, which started out as a show built to integrate with social media — “creating conversations about music that took place before the show went live and would carry on afterwards, with collaborative playlists on Spotify in which listeners could drag tracks in as much as the staff on the show”.

The show has changed over the years, Tom feels. It’s gone from “reflecting the online conversation about music”, to “your Sunday social”, but as a listener, I wouldn’t say the pleasure of it has diminished.

“I’m going to miss it,” Tom said. “Of course I am. Above all I’m going to miss the listeners — finding out what they’re up to, like, I don’t know, they’re walking the dog on holiday in Cornwall.” And does he have a favourite show he looks back on? “Oh yes. When Grandmaster Flash was the guest. That was amazing. He was just so totally ‘radio’ – he just took over the show. He’d say, ‘Hey listeners! You’re listening to Grandmaster Flash!’ He had such a way with words and such a vibrant personality. He finished by doing a live mix on a couple of decks, timing it perfectly right up to the 8 o’clock end of the show.”

Tom said he was very glad Mary-Anne Hobbs was coming back. “She absolutely deserves to be on air – she should be on a lot more than two hours a week, in my view. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather give the slot up to.”

Meanwhile, there is Tom’s own music career. It was performing that first got him his break into radio, back in 1984 when he and his band had been doing a show and a World Service producer called Annie Bristow came to see him backstage. “I thought she was going to congratulate me on the show, but what she actually said was that she really liked the bits between the songs when I was talking to the audience. She said would I like to have a 15-minute show on the World Service? And I thought, yeah I’ll give that a go. That’s where it all started. Then shortly after, Janice Long was absent from her Radio 1 show and I was asked, would you like to sit in on for her.

“Going to Radio 1 from the World Service — where there was no pressure whatsoever — was a revelation. I had no idea what the Radio 1 world was like. I imagined all these DJs choosing all the music, and then it was, ‘Here’s what we’re going to play today’, and ” I was, like, ‘What? Who are the Beastie Boys?’ I had no idea!”

Tom credits radio with helping him develop the talk with which he connects with audiences during his shows — both with his band and when playing solo. And if you want to experience that, the band plays shows this August, and in October Tom is on the road, just him and the guitarist Adam Phillips. Details are at tomrobinson.com

“I’m not a Richard Thompson,” Tom says. “Nobody is coming to hear me for the sheer quality of my guitar playing. Nor am I a John Grant — nobody is going to come for the sheer quality of my voice. Mine is a blunt instrument. But I guess what I’ve been able to do is interact with the audience. Radio has given me the ability to do that.”

Tonight’s Now Playing is the last chance in that setting to hear Tom making those connections. The theme? All things Tom Robinson. Of course, it had to be. “It’s going to be very strange,” he says. “I think I’d be more relaxed if someone else was reading out the emails. But we’ll see.”

I hope you can still enjoy it, Tom. All the best to you. And thanks for a fabulous 14 years.

'Now Playing’ is on 6 Music at 6pm this evening Sunday 1 June