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Chris Robinson is a musician. The 57-year-old is best known for being the lead singer of the Black Crowes. Ahead, he shares how his mother fostered his love of reading, what he has learnt after being married four times and what his daughter inherited from him.
“I’ve never been afraid to love, but I was also never the type to be a womaniser. I was always in a relationship and being with one person is the way I like it to be.”
I met my maternal grandmother just once as a child. She was passing, and everyone rushed to say their goodbyes. As a kid, that melancholy left an imprint on me and I’m sad I wasn’t old enough to get to know her. She raised 13 children in Nashville, Tennessee; my mother, Nancy, was the 11th born.
My paternal grandmother was quite a character. Everyone called her Totsy, but her real name was Thetis. Even though my grandfather, Ike Robinson, was Jewish and my dad, Stanley, was too, they both married non-Jewish girls.
My love of food and cuisine comes from Totsy. Food was more than just nourishment to her – there was a cultural dynamic around how she made her meals. We’d go to the apartment in Atlanta, Georgia, where Dad grew up, every Sunday. I loved her leg of lamb – it was vinegary and beautiful.
Totsy was very modern in the Deep South for her time. She had a marriage before she met my grandfather, and Dad had two half siblings. She made it to the age of 94.
My mum, Nancy, was a flight attendant in the 1950s and ’60s. She went to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and I get my cerebral side from her. She is a very Southern lady and still holds herself in that way.
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As a kid in the 70s, I was at the dawn of dyslexia being diagnosed, and it was Mom who went in to bat for me. She called people she knew at Harvard University and threw a lot of energy into that, which really benefited me and helped me feel less alone. Mom helped me discover a love of reading. I was challenged with the way words looked, but she drew me into a world of literature. It was a saving grace for me.
I had a teacher at a private boarding junior school called Mrs Schmidt. I was wearing Dead Kennedys T-shirts and was troublesome in class. She had a severe, close-cropped hairstyle and taught Latin. In the first week of class, she said “Chris, you’re very charming, but I couldn’t care less. I can see you’re lazy and I’m giving you an F.” I wanted to be a writer of some kind so I entered a short story and poetry competition and won. I remember seeing her look at me when I went to collect my prize.
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