Café Society

Café Society stood as the forerunner to Tom Robinson’s solo path, a group whose independent trajectory might have flourished had circumstances not intervened. Established in 1973 alongside Hereward Kaye and Ray Doyle, the outfit secured regular slots at the Troubadour Club and Bunjies within London’s Earl’s Court and Charing Cross neighborhoods. The Kinks’ Ray Davies caught one of their performances and promptly enlisted them for his fledgling imprint, Konk. Those promising beginnings soured once Davies took charge of recording an album shaped solely to his preferences, ignoring the folk rock aspirations that defined the collective. Frequently away on the Kinks’ tour schedule, Davies overrode their vision by layering electric instrumentation throughout the sessions, yielding results far from compelling. Issued at last in 1975, the record left Robinson so disenchanted that he departed to launch the Tom Robinson Band (TRB) together with Danny Kustow. Lingering animosity between Davies and Robinson prolonged the separation, requiring months for Robinson to sever ties with Konk while Davies retained a stake in publishing rights across the entire TRB era. Davies voiced comparable resentment by writing the lines “Tried to be gay/But it didn’t pay/So he bought a motorbike instead” for “Prince Of Punks,” the B-side of the Kinks’ 1977 single “Father Christmas.” Hereward Kaye, for his part, reemerged in the 90s to supply lyrics for the stage production Moby Dick.