Robin Lane talked about her career and new album on the Aug. 29 edition of the Devo Rock Show.
The interview and career retrospective covered her beginnings in Los Angeles in the late 1960s through her just-released Dirt Road to Heaven (Red on Red Records).
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The daughter of musician and songwriter Ken Lane who worked with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and who wrote the song “Everybody Loves Somebody” which was recorded by Sinatra, Peggy Lee and others before becoming a No. 1 hit for Dean Martin.
She started writing and singing her songs in the late 60s and became part of the Laurel Canyon artist community where she met future Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. Whitten was friends with Neil Young who invited her to sing on his second studio album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere in 1969 with Crazy Horse making its first appearance backing Young. Lane provided harmony vocals on “Round and Round (It Won’t Be Long)”. Lane lived with Young for a short period of time.
Later that year, she met her future husband Andy Summers who later became the guitarist of The Police. He had previously done stints with Soft Machine, Dantalian’s Chariot, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band and a brief spell with a version of Eric Burdon and The Animals. Their marriage only lasted a few years and she decided to move to the east coast where the story takes a turn to Boston.
It was in Boston where she met Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe who had been in The Modern Lovers. She recruited them for her new band The Chartbusters in 1978. Influenced by the new wave of rockers from Boston and New York, The Chartbusters merged her west coast sound with a harder edge. They had a regional hit with “When Things Go Wrong” which became a Boston radio staple. They were signed to Warner Brothers records and started receiving national airplay. The video for “When Things Go Wrong” has the distinction of being the 11th video played when MTV began broadcasting on Aug. 1, 1981, and remained in heavy rotation for the rest of the year.
The Chartbusters had three releases on Warner Brothers before being dropped in 1983 after which the band broke up. Lane’s first effort as a solo artist was a four-song EP, Heart Connection, released by the short-lived Boston independent label, Recon. Records in 1984.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Lane continued to write songs and produce albums while performing with different lineups of The Chartbusters.
In 2003, Piece Of Mind (Windjam) was released by The Chartbusters.
In 2010, she founded Songbird Sings which is dedicated to helping people work through and recover from traumatic experiences by writing and recording their songs.
Two years ago, she released Instant Album and continued to write songs which later became part of her current release — decidedly more country and Americana in style, yet still echoing her folk and rock past.
The program included a wide selection of music from Neil Young, The Chartbusters and Lane’s later releases.