Dr. Jane Robinson HoF

(Jim doesn't write music, or perform -- or even sing or play instruments. Jane never wanted to own a house, Jim bought one as soon as he could; Jane hated gardening, Jim can't get enough of it. My twin sister and I are really different! - Dr. James Robinson)

Dr. Jane Robinson was born smack-dab in the middle of Maine in 1948, to a family that loved and appreciated all kinds of music. Her grandmother taught her to play piano (they didn't call it "keyboard" back then) by ear when she was five. Her folks were part of a barbershop quartet, so she grew up being sung to sleep to the (mostly) soothing sounds of 4-part harmony.

Later she began singing along with the group. "My Dad was by far the loudest, and he was the tenor, so of course I sang along with him; it was years before I figured out the actual melody to those songs!", she says. When she was old enough to join the church choir and double quartet, she sang -- you guessed it -- tenor. She also learned to play flute and piccolo in Junior High because she wanted to be in the marching band, but desired an instrument small enough to put up her sleeve when it was really cold on the football field.

Jane started writing music when she was ten, but was frustrated by not being able to sing and play flute at the same time, so she taught herself guitar. By the end of high school she was writing and singing about chemistry and biology (A Battle With the Elements and Backbone), and this writing continued during undergrad and grad school. After receiving her doctorate in Biology at UCLA in 1976 she got a part-time teaching and curatorial job at UC Berkeley and gave occasional benefit performances for the UCB Museum of Paleontology. Eventually (perhaps inevitably) Jane was discovered and embraced by the filk community in 1986.

There followed an incredibly productive 15 years of writing, performing, arranging, and playing back-up bass, percussion and keyboard, primarily with her partner and best friend, Cynthia McQuillin. The results of those years can be found on any dealer's table, and have earned Jane the informal title of "the Tom Lehrer of science". She retired from writing and performing in 1998, and then turned his copious energies to organizing and running Consonance. James currently lives in Oakland, CA with one gray cat and lots of happy houseplants. He has since been self-employed as a massage therapist and bodyworker for many years.

Jim currently lives in Richmond, CA where he gardens and collects bones as passionately as he used to sing and write. He has been a therapeutic bodyworker for over 25 years, with an office in Berkeley and a practice full of "well-adjusted" fannish clients.