VInce Robinson interview, 18 July 2023

Abstract

Vince Robinson is a local Cleveland musician and owner of Larchmere Arts, a studio for poetry, R&B jam sessions, lectures and theatre. He attended Kent State University in the 1980, were he was introduced to jazz, photography and poetry through college professor Mwatabu Okantah. Robinson is also a freelance journalist and has interviewed Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and other influential jazz musicians. In this oral history, Robinson discusses his art, career and reflections on race. In 2019, his art exhibit The Black Experience: From Then and Now was displayed at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Interviewee

Robinson, Vince (interviewee)

Interviewer

Taffe, Jamila (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)

Project

Green Book Cleveland

Date

7-18-2023

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

94 minutes

Recommended Citation

"VInce Robinson interview, 18 July 2023" (2023). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 723002.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1453

Related Resources

Green Book @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Jamila Taffe [00:00:13] -discrimination. We want you to feel comfortable letting us know if you want to decline a question, change topics, or end the interview at any point without any judgment.

Vince Robinson [00:00:23] Okay. Just so you know, I don’t have any qualms about talking about race.

Jamila Taffe [00:01:30] Okay, perfect. Yeah. Because there’s gonna be some questions. So if you could go ahead and, like, sign this informed consent sheet, then. Just, like, the one towards the left. Here you go. It- Thank you. So I’m just going to start off with some background questions just to get to know you a little bit better. So what is your full name?

Vince Robinson [00:01:31] Vincent L. Robinson.

Jamila Taffe [00:01:34] And what year were you born?

Vince Robinson [00:01:35] 1957.

Jamila Taffe [00:01:39] So tell me about your family growing up. What was that like?

Vince Robinson [00:04:03] I grew up in a military family, so we traveled to quite a few different places during my dad’s military service. I was actually born in Clearfield, Utah. We moved from Utah to Washington, D.C. Then we moved to the Philippines, and we were stationed at Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia. We were stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for a very short season. And then I moved to Massillon, Ohio, with the family. My father was assigned to do a stint in the Vietnam War. So he spent a year, what they called TDY, temporary duty, away from home. And while he was gone, our family lived in Massillon. So for a couple years, during my elementary school years, we lived in Massillon. Then he got an assignment to Naha, Okinawa, Japan. So we lived in Japan for a few years, moved from Japan to California, stayed there for a couple years, and then we ended up back in Ohio. My parents are from Northeast- Well, from Ohio, actually. My mother’s from Massillon, and dad is from Chillicothe, Ohio. So it was like coming back home. And then from there, I graduated from high school at Massillon and ended up at Kent State University. But in terms of the family, you know, we lived in all those places that I mentioned. We had a very rich life, you know, comparatively speaking, because we were able to see so much of the world and experience different cultures and. And there were challenges involved in that, you know, but I think we did okay. You know, my mother is a retired registered nurse. So during my dad’s military service, she went to nursing school, became an LPN. Later in life, she became a registered nurse. I think it was after she turned age 50, she actually got a degree and became a registered nurse. So mom is an inspiration to me and to others. And right now, she’s 87 years old. But, yeah, we had a great life as a family, growing up in the military. Navigating all the nuances of being dependents of a military veteran. 

Jamila Taffe [00:04:24] I can see how enriching that is to be all over and traveling. So. So did you have, like, any siblings or brothers and sisters?

Vince Robinson [00:04:56] Yeah, brother and sister. My brother is 14 months younger than I am, and I think my sister is six or seven years younger than I am. So we were fairly close in age. Both of them are very successful in life. My brother works for the state of Ohio in the Department of Corrections. He’s an administrator, and my sister is a librarian in Chillicothe, Ohio and she’s president of the NAACP chapter there, following in the footsteps of my father, who served in that capacity for 19 years.

Jamila Taffe [00:05:13] So how do you feel like your parents, work experience- How did that impact you?

Vince Robinson [00:07:00] That’s a pretty loaded question, actually. And the reason that I say that is because I know that my father had to deal with racism in the military, and there were ways that the way it affected him affected us. I can say that, you know, things changed from him once he left the military, but it was also a good learning experience for me to see how he persevered through the challenges of being in the military and being held back in certain ways. Looking at the relationships that he and my mother maintained over a long period of time was a great learning experience. And some of those folks are still our friends today. You know, when you grow up in the military, it’s really difficult to maintain friendships. You know, back in the day, we didn’t have social media, so it wasn’t like you could just look on Facebook or look somebody’s name up and see where they are in the world and what they’re doing. So, you know, you made friends, and then you lost friends. And as a result of that experience, I really cherish friendships that I’ve had for a long time. Being in Massillon and then coming back to Massillon and living again gave me an opportunity to reconnect with people who have been my friends. So that was quite a rewarding experience. And I still have some of those friendships, even until today.

Jamila Taffe [00:07:06] What did you do for fun growing up?

Vince Robinson [00:08:46] I did a lot of things. I was very active in sports. You know, my parents made sure that we had activities to connect with. So I played baseball and football and basketball and judo, those kinds of things. Living on a military base meant that there were outlets for children. So I can remember going roller skating and, you know, going swimming, learning how to swim and going swimming. So those are the kinds of things that I- That I liked to do. I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday, and we were just talking about some of the backyard games that we used to play. So I can remember playing badminton and croquet and things like that. You know, so those are always fun things. And then, you know, riding bicycles. You know, I have a very vivid memory of getting a bike. It wasn’t my first bike, but I got a bicycle at the age of seven in Savannah, Georgia. And we lived on, I believe it was Lloyd Street. And Lloyd Street at that time wasn’t a paved road, so it was still a dirt road. And so I can remember drawing giant hopscotch maps or boards or on the street. And I can remember riding my bicycle full speed down that dirt road and slamming on the brakes and then marveling at how long my skid mark was. And the controversy or the contest with me was to make a longer skid mark every time. So those are some of the things that I did for fun. And then, you know, just hanging out with friends, you know, football games. At my friend’s house in Massillon, he had a great big field next to his house, so we would play tackle football in his field, his father’s field.

Jamila Taffe [00:09:07] Very active childhood. Yeah. So when did you get into playing music? Because you’re an artist, right?

Vince Robinson [00:09:14] Yeah.

Jamila Taffe [00:09:14] When did that happen?

Vince Robinson [00:09:43] I started playing music as a child again in Savannah. My parents had a piano, and I guess I must have done something on that piano that told them that, well, maybe he wants to do this. So they connected me with a teacher. His name was Dr. Small. And at the age of seven, I wrote my first song. So I’ve been playing music ever since.

Jamila Taffe [00:09:48] Do you still have that song?

Vince Robinson [00:10:14] I still have it. I didn’t name the song. It was just something that I would sit down and play. And, you know, it’s funny, I don’t remember writing other songs until later in life, but when I took music from Dr. Small, he would play the song and I would hear the song, and I only had to hear the song one time. And after he played the song, I would play the song. Of course, he wanted me to read it, but I didn’t need to read it because I could hear it and play it. I did learn how to read, and my reading started with him. But I think playing music was something that was just in me, and it’s something that has been developed and encouraged over the years and something that is extremely, extremely meaningful and integral to who I am as a person.

Jamila Taffe [00:10:46] So what music did you find yourself listening to growing up?

Vince Robinson [00:10:50] I listened to the music that my parents were listening to, but I also listened to music that was on the radio. So for instance, when we lived in Okinawa, we listened to Armed Forces Radio. And so they were playing a lot of popular music. So I can remember listening to Iron Butterfly, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” and some of those other songs like “Green Tambourine,” you know, popular music. Listening to the Beatles and other groups that were popular at that time. But at the same time, my father was very much into music. He played a little piano. My mother played drum. She played a snare drum in the Massillon Tiger Marching Swing Band. So I have musical DNA, so to speak. And so I was blessed to get the benefit of my dad’s record collection. And, you know, dad had an Akai tape deck. Back in the day, we had these things called reel-to-reel tape decks. And you would thread the tape to a reel and then it would spin the reel and you could record music and listen to music that way. And of course, he had a turntable. So we listened to James Brown. We listened to Jimmy Smith at the Chicken Shack. My dad listened to some jazz. And of course there was, you know, Aretha Franklin and the Temptations. Very fond memory. We were traveling across country, I think we were actually on our way to Okinawa, and my dad had these three 8-tracks. It was Motown’s Greatest Hits. So traveling across the United States, we listened to the Temptations and Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross and the Supremes and all of that music, so I was exposed to quite a bit of music, but I kind of gravitated towards R & B music. And as a student at Kent State University, I connected with now Professor Mwatabu Okantah, who at the time was a grad student teaching a class called the Black Writers Workshop. And I visited Okantah one time, and he was playing Arthur Blythe and John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, these jazz artists. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then I found out about a record store in Cincinnati, Ohio, called Everybody’s Records. I drove to Cincinnati on Christmas break. I walked in there with $60 or $70, and I walked out with 50 albums. And they were all jazz albums. And I sequestered myself in my room over that entire two-week period and I listened to jazz every day. And that was really my baptism in jazz music. And then as an adult, of course, I had a curiosity about how to play that music. So I started taking lessons with a gentleman here in Cleveland, trying to remember his name because he lived actually in the University Circle area. They tore his house down to build something on that property. But he was an instructor who was recommended me by another musician named Skip Gibson. And I’ll think of his name before the interview ends. But I reconnected with music that way. So I started back taking lessons as a grown man.

Jamila Taffe [00:14:44] So what would you say your early musical influences were? Besides your music teacher or your parents?

Vince Robinson [00:15:47] The early influences were groups like Sly and the Family Stone, of course, The Temptations, Jackson 5, those kinds of groups. And as a child, I played music. And as I said, I could hear music and play it. So I played by ear, but I played by myself. So with the piano, you have a whole range of tones. You have high tones, you have low tones. So with my left hand, I will play the bass tones. And with my right hand, I will play the melody and I will play the chords. So that’s kind of how I got into playing music. And so when I listened to groups like Sly and Family Stone, you know, I would mimic the bass as best I could. I remember playing Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself.” I remember being young and playing the Temptations song “Just My Imagination,” because I could hear that. That bass line and play the bass line and play the melody. And, you know, intrinsically, just learn the chord and put all of that together. So, yeah, that’s how it came together.

Jamila Taffe [00:16:13] That’s so cool, though, that you can, like, listen by ear. And you mentioned earlier that you went to Kent State, right? So what did you study there?

Vince Robinson [00:18:26] I was a Telecommunications major. When we were on our way to Okinawa, I believe, or perhaps it was on our way back, I just remember being in San Francisco and seeing Soul Train. And I’m not sure if it was for the first time, but I saw Don Cornelius. And there was just something about his aura that left an imprint on me. So I’ve always known that communication is a strong skill that I have. So I decided when I left Massillon Washington High School. That I wanted to go into broadcasting. So that was it, being in Massillon, going to Kent State, studying Telecommunications. But I had a minor, and my minor was Pan African Studies. So at Kent State, I actually graduated with enough credit in the Department of Pan African Studies for a double major. But this is where it gets interesting. Being in broadcasting, of course, I had a concern about how I would be perceived. You know, so if I go to a place and they see that, you know, I have any kind of Pan Africanist leanings, it might have been scary for them at the time. So I chose to just major in telecommunications, and my minor was Pan African Studies. And of course, in broadcasting, as a radio announcer, television announcer, you don’t have to have a degree, but I studied telecommunications and Pan African Studies. And I will tell you that the Pan African Studies experience was extremely important to me in terms of my awareness, even to this day. There are certain aspects of Pan Africanism that resonate with me and are an integral part of who I am. So, yeah, it was broadcasting, and I ended up working in radio for eight years after I graduated. But I got sidetracked because I couldn’t find another local radio job, and I ended up working in insurance for 27 years.

Jamila Taffe [00:18:58] So what made you stay in Cleveland?

Vince Robinson [00:21:56] Well, interestingly enough, there were times that I entertained the idea of living somewhere else, and I traveled the United States and literally traveled the world. I went to Africa a few times as I was growing up, but there was just something about Cleveland that made things easier to manage. You know, I visited Atlanta well, before Atlanta became, you know, the hub that it is right now with all the activity. And even then, it was. It was a little too busy for me. You know, I’ve been to cities like New York and Los Angeles, and it’s the same thing. You know, who wants to sit in traffic for three or four hours a day? You know, and commutes can be quite challenging. But living in Cleveland, you know, you find your way around. You know, the traffic backs up. You find another way. So it’s not as traumatic, you know, And I’ve really learned to appreciate. I’ve grown to learn. I’ve grown to love Cleveland just because of all of the perks that are here. You know, we have one of the best theatrical places in the world. You know, with Playhouse Square, if you look at the park system, the Metropark system, I mean, you know, there’s just so much within a very short distance. I can get on my bicycle and ride to a Metro park and be there within five minutes, five or 10 minutes, you know, so there’s a lot. And then there’s the diversity. Even though, you know, Cleveland has been characterized as one of the most segregated locations in the country, historically it has been that we’re kind of seeing some of that pushback, you know, because now Black people are living on the west side, whereas before we didn’t. You still have pockets of ethnicity. Like, you have an Asian area, you have an Italian area, you have an area where Latinos, you know, where they live. But you still have all of this diversity. And with the diversity comes the cultural mixing. You know, black folks like Italian food. You know, we like Latin food, you know, and vice versa. I’m sure that there are folks who enjoy soul food that aren’t Black. So it’s- It’s just good to have all this cultural diversity and opportunities for folks to learn about each other and the various cultures, you know. So it’s kind of an extension of my military life, being able to be in another country and see how people live, but then to be here and to witness some of those. Those cultural differences and then the cultural affinity. So that’s one of the reasons that I like Cleveland to the extent that I do, and that’s one of the reasons that I’ve been here for the balance of my life.

Jamila Taffe [00:22:10] And you mentioned that you worked in insurance right? For 27 years? So how was that transition to like taking music and poetry as like a full time career now?

Vince Robinson [00:24:47] It’s interesting because while I was working at the insurance company, I was still involved in all of those things. I was still doing radio. I wrote a syndicated radio program called A Moment in Music History. It was syndicated on different radio stations, urban radio stations around the state was sponsored by the Ohio Lottery. So I actually got paid to do radio. I did the voiceover. I went to 93 FM WZAK and they recorded the program for me there. So I got to do what I do as a producer, broadcaster. Even though I was working at the insurance company. I also participated in a television show called Down to Business. So it was Black-oriented business news show. I worked with Barry Riley on that project and we were on channel 19 for a few years. So I got to do that while I was at the insurance company. I started an open mic series. It was called Soul Poetry at Another Level. And it was staged at a coffee house at the Green Light Shopping Center. And it was there that I started my first band with Councilman Kevin Conwell. He wasn’t a councilman at the time, but he was the person that I asked to play drums for me because we were students together at Kent State University. And I knew that he had that ability. So he was gracious enough to join me as well as a young man by the name of Derrick James, who is the bassist for Horns and Things, which is a local jazz group. And he also does quite a few shows with guitarist Sam Hooper. So I was doing music and all the things that I do now. But after I left my job, I used to say I retired. I stopped saying that I retired. I just quit my job and I decided that I wanted to do music, I wanted to do photography, I wanted to fulfill my life’s purpose as a communicator. And so that’s what happened.

Jamila Taffe [00:24:49] So careerwise, what came first? Was it the music, the poetry, or the photography?

Vince Robinson [00:26:23] It all happened at the same time because, as I was saying, I was engaged in those things when I was working. So I think probably the photography business went to another level after I let my job go because I connected with another fellow photographer. And we started Larchmere Arts, and it was a photography studio that evolved into all the things that it is now. So what it is now is this photography studio. It’s an art gallery, it’s a performance venue, and it is a community space. Because it is a venue, different groups, different people have access to the space. And then we facilitate all other kinds of things. We’ve had plays in there. We’ve had table reads, we’ve had authors launch their books in this space. Recently we had the Neighborhood Advisory Council for the Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University. I had a meeting in our space. We’ve had Kwanzaas in our space. You know, we typically observe Kuumba, which is creativity. So. So we’ve done a few Kwanzaas in that space with my partner, my art partner. I call her Gwen Garth, who was a former member of the board of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. She’s a music therapist and artist. And so we work together on different projects.

Jamila Taffe [00:26:36] And when did you start lecturing arts?

Vince Robinson [00:26:39] 2015 is when we started the business. And then 2016, May 20, we opened the doors.

Jamila Taffe [00:26:52] And what attracted you to poetry and photography specifically?

Vince Robinson [00:30:29] While I was a student at Kent State, the gentleman that I mentioned to you, Mwatabu Okantah, in that Black writer’s workshop, he just told me one day, brother, you a poet. And I’m like, okay, okay. So I guess I decided at that point I would take it seriously. So it wasn’t writing poems, and somehow they disappear. I was writing poems and keeping poems. So I saved up a number of poems and published my first book in 2015. But that. That was the Poetry and the Photography, another Pan African Studies course. It was Towards a Black Aesthetic. And the instructor was E. Timothy Moore, who eventually became the dean, I believe, of the College of Arts and Sciences. He was the dean of one of those departments. And today the student center at Kent State University is named after him. But I took his class and I learned dark room technique, and I learned about some other genres of art. But I had to purchase a camera for that class. It was a Pentax K1000 camera, very basic, fully manageable Nothing like the cameras that we use today, where you just aim the camera, press the button and voila, you get a beautiful picture. So, so I started studying photography. Then I was just taking pictures of people and selling them their pictures. And then I went to a concert with Sonny Stitt at Kent State University in the music, I think it was. It was a communications building, Music and speech building they called it. And I shot that concert. And that was the beginning of, I’ll just say, a career as a music photographer. So since then I’ve amassed a collection of photographs of so many different musicians. I mean, I’ve been shooting the Tri-C Jazz Fest and the Detroit Jazz Festival since 1991. And prior to that I was shooting for, for a publication called Echelon Magazine, which was founded by Alexandria Boone, was very noteworthy woman entrepreneur here in Cleveland. I shot for Crusader Arts and Entertainment. Mr. William Potts, Bill Potts, may he rest in peace, asked me to shoot and write reviews for concerts. So you probably never heard of it, but there was a venue in Cleveland called the Front Row Theater. It was in Highland Heights, I think it was somewhere close to 271 and Gates Mill Boulevard. And it was Theater in the Round. So because of my connection with the newspaper, I would be asked to shoot shows there. So I shot James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Salt and Pepper. Just so many different shows that I was able to see when I was writing and shooting for Arts Award for Crusader Arts and Entertainment. It was a great experience. I’ve been shooting for the Eastside Daily News since ’91. So on an annual basis, I make it a point to cover the Tri-C Jazz Fest and the Detroit Jazz Fest and make sure that those photographs and that write up end up in the newspaper.

Jamila Taffe [00:30:51] And how would you describe your creative process?

Vince Robinson [00:36:30] Well, it depends on the genre. With poetry, the creative process begins with a thought. And it could just be a single thought. And then I start building on what I originally thought and it’s kind of a stream of consciousness. So the words just come, you know. And the way I look at that is the fact that there’s this body called creation and everybody has an opportunity to plug into that. And when we do, some people call it downloading, whatever it is, but you make that connection and then that creative aspect comes through you. So it starts with a thought and then I just build on that. In terms of music, it just happens, you know, sometimes your finger takes you to the next logical note, the next note that makes sense. But sometimes you get to another note. That doesn’t make sense. But in piano, you’re only a half step away from the right note or the note that harmonizes with the previous note. So it’s another situation that involves stream of consciousness. But it’s just. You just sit down. At least for me, I just sit down and I start playing. And whatever comes to me in that moment, that’s what comes out with photography. It’s just seeing something you know, and knowing that what you’re looking at in that moment is meaningful. And then you have an opportunity to capture that photographically. And the beauty of the photography that we deal with now, digital photography, is that you have such an ability to manipulate that image. So sometimes you can take something that aesthetically is not pleasing, and you can alter it to a point where, to you at least, it becomes more aesthetically pleasing. So my creative process is just dealing with whatever there is in the moment. And I’ll tell you, it’s funny, the worst thing you can do is go for a walk and have a camera in your hand. Especially if it’s exercise, you know, because when you’re walking, you want to keep your heart rate up. And, you know. But then you have this camera, and then you’re walking, you see something, and then you just feel compelled to stop because, you know, well, that might not be there when I get back to the spot, or I may never come back to the spot again, or it won’t look like that when I see it. Or it could be something that is in the process of happening that you have an ability to capture. So that’s what it is in terms of my process in photography. Shooting concerts, for instance, it’s really kind of like it’s an art and it’s a science. At the same time, when you shoot concerts, you have to shoot around things that can be distracting, like a microphone. You know, a lot of singers hold a microphone right up to their mouth. So when you take their picture, you’re taking a picture of a microphone in front of their face. So as a photographer, you want to avoid that cliche. So you have to find an angle so that you can see that person’s mouth, because the mouth is what expresses, you know. So that’s part of the art of doing what I call music portraiture. When I shoot musicians, it’s not always about showing one in a very expressive moment. You know, they’re wincing or they’re smiling or whatever. For me, sometimes it’s just capturing the moment in between. So when I take portraits of musicians, it might be Them taking a sip of water. Or it could be them observing another musician and just really being into the music and closing their eyes and appreciating it. So I take a different approach sometimes. Sometimes it’s about getting what other photographers don’t get. Like this past Tri-C Jazz Fest, they was a performance by Trombone Shorty, who spent the majority of the concert on stage. But there was a moment when he decided to go up the aisle towards the back of the venue. And I just so happened that I was in one of the boxes up above so I could shoot down. So I got the shot of him down, and you could see all the patrons around him and how they were all geeked about what was going on. And then you see him with his trombone straight up in the air, and it was like, wow. You know, and then you take these pictures, and this. This is the experience. You know, I take a lot of pictures, you know, because sometimes you could take 10 pictures and only one of them looks like something that, okay, that’s artistic, that I don’t know about that. But you take so many pictures. So it’s like Christmas, you know, it’s like going through all these presents and then you see one that you really like. You know, that’s- That’s one of the most rewarding aspects of photography. Sometimes it’s capturing something that you didn’t expect, and sometimes it’s just seeing something, and it’s like you’re just blown away by what happened when you push the button that time.

Jamila Taffe [00:36:59] How has your music and art evolved over the years?

Vince Robinson [00:44:56] With respect to poetry? It’s gone through different stages. You know, I mentioned Okantah, and I would say that in terms of my form, it mirrored his in some ways. But then in some ways, it was conscious decisions that I made to be different. So the form has evolved over a period of time. But the other thing that has evolved is what I write about. And I find myself writing about things that are going on in the world that people should know about. But also, there’s an activist aspect to my writing, because ultimately, as a writer, I like to lead people to their life’s purpose. I like to give them things that will give them insight into how they can discover their own power as a person. So I weave those things into some of the things that I write. There was a period of time when I stopped writing because I felt as though I had written about injustice and all those things, you know, and it’s like I was tired of it. You know, I didn’t think that I could write anything new because I had already written about it before. And then a strange thing happened. Somebody approached me about writing for a medical journal, and I think they wanted me to write a poem. And when I started to write, after having writer’s block for so long, I started reflecting on my father’s experience. My dad served in the Vietnam War. He was away from us for years, two whole years of our lives. And while he was away, they told us he was in Thailand, he was actually in Laos, and they had him involved in Agent Orange. So he was exposed to Agent Orange. And later in life, he contracted Parkinson’s disease. And so the last few years of his life, the last two years of his life, he spent in the hospital with Parkinson’s. So because that was so heavy on my mind, I started writing about that. And the floodgates just opened, you know, and that was kind of the beginning of me opening up again and using my voice to address societal ills, you know, so in terms of how it evolved, yeah, I wrote about societal ills before, but now I write with a different perspective. And it is one that is intentional about raising consciousness. But also, you know, I can still write a love poem. I can still write the humorous stuff. I was on the Cleveland Poetry Slam Team. I think it was 2004, and then the next year, 2005. So during a certain part of my life, I was writing slam poetry. You know, and slam poetry is different in that it’s very performance oriented. But that experience, you know, two years straight of going to national poetry slams kind of soured me on slams because it just seemed as though the poems were written to elicit a response. And so people were talking about being molested as children. They were writing about their struggles with gender identity. You know, just a whole plethora of poetry that seemed, I don’t want to say journal entry oriented, but those kinds of topics kind of made it into. And I- And I understand it’s important for folks to express and, you know- You want people to hear your story, but, you know, after two years of national poetry slams, I had to step back, you know, so I’ll go to an open mic every once in a while and, you know, and I’ll sit through some poems that aren’t necessarily that inspiring, but then I’ll hear other poets, especially young poets. You know, I hear young poets and, you know, after I hear them or read them, it just inspires me to want to continue to do what I do. So that’s how the poetry evolved in terms of the music. I have had to learn certain aspects of music theory. So things that I was doing instinctively now I do with an awareness of what I’m doing. Music is very formulaic, it’s mathematically oriented. So 10 years ago, if you said, well, play a 4, 5, 1 progression, I wouldn’t have known what you were doing talking about. But that’s part of the language of musicians. So if you’re a musician and you want to play with someone and they say, well, let’s play the blues in D. Okay, well, so you know that it’s going to be a one, it’s going to be a four, it’s going to be a five. So you play one four, five progression, and you can play that one, four, five progression in every key. And because you know the numbers and you know the notes, you can play it. Ironically, that first song that I wrote, it was a 1, 4, 5 progression. So that’s how music has evolved. In terms of photography, I started analog photography. I used Tri-X Pan Film, black-and-white film. And then somewhere around 2000, I got that first digital camera. And it was life-changing. You know, with the film cameras, for instance, if I’m shooting the Detroit Jazz festival, you shoot 36 frames, you gotta stop, take the canister of film out, put another one in, thread it, reload it, and then start shooting again. So you’re gonna miss something while you’re reloading your camera. But with digital photography, I can get 128 gig SD card and I can shoot for four or five hours and not have to change that card. So it was that. It was not having to cross my fingers and hope that the picture turned out right. With a digital camera, you can take a picture and see the image and then make adjustments if you need to so you can do it on the fly and not waste film or SD card space. You know, particularly when you’re shooting, you know, high resolution pictures and you’re shooting raw images, you can use up a lot of memory really quickly. But even in the digital world you can make provisions so that you know, you’re not running out of card space or whatever. So I guess the photography has just evolved based on the changes in technology.

Jamila Taffe [00:45:13] So speaking of that, how do you feel about, like, the film cameras growing back, like in popularity now?

Vince Robinson [00:46:48] Well, I think it mirrors a desire for people to still have a connection with the analog world. You know, it’s funny, I have a friend who lives not far from here and he said, yeah, he said, I’m shooting film, you know, you got any film? And I have a few roles. But, you know, he just- He was like- He was excited about it. But the last time I saw it, I said, you still shoot film? He said, no, man. He said, got kind of expensive, you know, because when you shoot film, in order to see the picture, you have to develop a print. And it costs money to develop prints. It costs money to develop film. So there’s a higher cost involved in that. But there is also a beauty in it, you know, when you look at some of the work of the great photographers, you know, and you know that they use that medium and it has that artistic value, you know, so there’s still value in it. But it’s the same with music. You know, people are buying albums again. You know, the only difference is, before, I could buy that album for a dollar. Now you can buy the same album, it’ll cost you $100, you know. But you get the benefit of having that diamond stylus on that platter. That platter has a relationship to melanin. So because of the melanin, because of the way the music is reproduced, there is a warmer sound. It’s a much more natural sound. It’s much more pleasing to the ears, and in ways, it’s more beneficial to your spirit. So the folks who are saying, I want to listen to that album, they’re getting something from it, and it’s worth it.

Jamila Taffe [00:47:09] So are there any particular philosophies that influenced you as an artist?

Vince Robinson [00:51:06] I can’t speak to anything specifically or anything that someone may have said at some point. But, you know, I have a few personal philosophies, and one of them is to, for instance, just write. You know, people say, I want to write a book, but I don’t know how to do it, you know? Well, my thing is just write. You know, if you have an idea about something, just write it down, you know, because you can always come back to it and edit it or reshape it or reform it or whatever. But you have to capture that thought, because if you don’t capture it, you’ll miss it. And I’m guilty of it because sometimes I have that thought about a poem, and then I’ll think, oh, I’ll come back to it. And then I could never remember what it was, or it doesn’t come back the same way. So it’s important in that moment that when you get that thought, you act upon it. It’s really important to do that. But another thing is work on your craft and be open to Learning, you know, I’ve been shooting photography, shooting pictures for probably close to 45 years. But I know that there’s so much more for me to learn, you know, and that’s why I watch other people, I look at their product, I look at their approach, you know, I ask questions. So they might have a piece of equipment that I might be interested in or curious about. So there’s always something more to learn. I’ll give you another one. I was acquainted with a drummer friend of mine who, he was a world class drummer. I mean, this guy had played with people like Dizzy Gillespie and Ahmad Jamal and some of the other greats, just happened to live in Cleveland. And he was recommended to me when my then drummer, Chuck Orange, was unable to do a gig because he had another commitment. So. So he sent this brother to me named Reggie Holmes. And Reggie was a recovering alcoholic. He had not played for some time, but for whatever reason, he was moved to do this gig for me. So he and I developed quite a friendship as a result of that. And so I was ready to step up to a newer keyboard. And I was playing an 88 key Yamaha stage piano at the time. And so I’m going to these music stores to look at instruments. And then I had a conversation with him and he said, no, man, not that one, not that one, not that one. Get the Nord. Now the Nord keyboard, which is the one that I played today, at the time it was $4,500. The other keyboards were only a couple thousand, you know. But he said, if you want to be the best, you got to play the best. And so I have never regretted playing that instrument or obtaining that instrument because, you know, other musicians will come and they’ll play it and they’ll be like, wow, man, wow. This is amazing.

Jamila Taffe [00:51:10] And have you had any favorite collaborations over the years?

Vince Robinson [00:53:52] Well, my collaboration with Reggie Holmes was really meaningful. And the thing that Reggie liked about me was that I was writing my own music. You know, he was real critical about folks who, you know, all they do is play the same songs over and over and it’s always somebody else’s music. So he really encouraged me to write my own. And he was a recording engineer too, so we recorded some music together. I recorded a poetry CD as well. So that was a collaboration that really worked musically. Today, one of my favorite collaborations is a saxophonist. His name is Ken Lee Grand. And Ken, I call Ken Cleveland’s Grover Washington Jr. He is an amazing musician. He has a great ear. He plays a number of saxophones, including an electronic instrument that will give you other voices like strings or other horns or, you know, other types of tones. But that’s one of my favorite collaborations. I don’t want to slide anyone because I collaborate with a few people, but Ken is definitely way up there at the top of the list, and I can’t. Wow. I’d be remiss if I left out Mwatabu Okantah. Okantah is a griot. I’m a griot, but he’s a griot. And he’s a griot with a master’s degree. And he’s the chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Kent State University. And because of him, I performed on a lot of different stages. So, you know, we’ve played as far east as West Virginia University. We played in a number of festivals. We played in an African American Festival in Ashtabula, of all places. I’ve collaborated with some other folks. There was a group called Timbara, and so vocalist Simmy Davis, percussionist Gil Cody, Michael Calhoun of the Dazz Band, we did a couple of gigs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on King Day. So there have been some meaningful collaborations, but I would say probably musically Anyway, the top two would be Okantah and definitely Mr. Lee Grant.

Jamila Taffe [00:54:05] And going off of that, if you could sit down with one legendary musician, who would it be?

Vince Robinson [00:55:25] You know, just this morning, across my Facebook feed came some footage of Sammy Davis Jr. He played a trumpet, then he played a xylophone, then he played a drum set. And I was just thinking, you know, we talk about Michael Jackson being the greatest entertainer ever, or some people look at Elvis Presley, but he not only played those instruments, but he sang, he danced, he did all the things that he did. And then he was an actor as well. I mean, I think it would be really interesting to have a conversation with him, but I would have a conversation with Prince because Prince was equally talented. I have had occasion to speak to Max Roach. I had did an interview with Eddie Harris at the Holiday Inn on Lakeside downtown. I had an interview for Night. That was an interview. It was a conversation with McCoy Tyner. I’ve interviewed quite a few people just because I’ve been in radio and I’ve been an interviewer over the years, years. So I’ve been blessed to do that. But if there were anyone, I would probably talk to Prince.

Jamila Taffe [00:55:47] So Prince or Michael Jackson?

Vince Robinson [00:55:50] Prince. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Jackson. He was born on the exact same day as my brother. So I have an affinity to him for just that reason alone. And Michael was very talented. He was talented as a dancer, he was talented as a singer, and singers are musicians. But when I compare the musical talent of Michael Jackson to the musical talent of Prince, there’s no comparison.

Jamila Taffe [00:56:25] So what challenges have you faced in your career?

Vince Robinson [01:02:18] Well, I guess it depends on which career, because I’ve had a few with insurance. The challenge was just the way the job evolved over a period of time. And it got to a point where it seemed as though it was a hostile environment and they didn’t want the older employees around because they could hire younger employees and pay them less. So the challenge that I had was staying because the job was becoming so much more demanding of my time and I wanted to do other things with my time. You know, if I had, for instance, Neo Soul Poetry at the Coventry Library on first and third Tuesdays, and the first Tuesday rolled around and they wanted me to be in Pennsylvania to measure a house and to get customer feedback, that just. That wasn’t a work-life balance that I could agree to. So my challenge was to keep those things balanced. And my creative life was more important to me than my professional life. So I just got to a point where I figured out what I would need to be able to pay my bills and cover my expenses and then create space to be creative. And that’s what I did, and that’s why I walked away from my job. But in terms of challenges on the other side of things with poetry, it was just staying relevant. You know, as I said, I kind of got frustrated about writing the same kinds of things over and over and over again. But, you know, understanding that you can still still deal with things in a contemporary way and still be relevant, you know, we’re still singing the same songs that we were singing back in the ’60s when it comes to protest, you know, we’re still singing “We Shall Overcome,” you know. So one of the biggest challenges, I think right now is changing the narrative. You know, this whole idea of “I can’t breathe,” for instance, you know, it became a popular thing to say after George Floyd’s murder. But I’m saying, don’t say you can’t breathe. At a point it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So I can breathe. And I wrote a poem about that, you know, I can breathe. And it was definitely pushback against accepting that narrative. So the challenge to me is just in coaxing people to see things a different way. You know, that’s the challenge that we have as artists, period, to be taken seriously. You know, it’s the reason that you don’t see many Cleveland artists in the Cleveland Museum of Art. How seriously do they take us as artists in this community? Why is it that art from somewhere else is so much more important than what we do here? It’s not because they’re prettier pictures. It’s not because, you know, they’re more socially relevant if that’s the subject of the art, you know. So the challenge is, as artists, being taken seriously. Why is it that people would not be willing to pay $100 to come hear me play piano, but they’ll come here, somebody else who comes from California to play the same piano? You know, we might be equal in terms of talent, but because that person has notoriety, because they have celebrity, because they have the machinery that they have behind them, they’ll pay $100 for that person, but they find it hard to reach into the pocket and pay $10 to hear me play, you know, so that. That’s another challenge that we face as artists. And it’s a. It’s a. It’s a challenge that I face as an artist. I mean, I play piano, so if you go somewhere where somebody is playing piano, it’s like, okay, nice background. And it’s an invitation to conversation. If you’re in the same place and somebody steps up to the mic and they start singing, singing, then all of a sudden you’re listening. But you don’t relate to the notes that are being played on that piano as a thought or an idea, but they are. Every note is a thought or an idea. So that’s another challenge that I face as an artist, and that is just being taken as seriously as I would like to be taken. But sometimes, you know, the art speaks for itself. I mean, just like you heard the poem about Winston Willis, and something about it resonated, it provoked a thought. It made you think about things a certain way. That’s the power that we have as artists. And somebody in California could hear that poem and get the same feeling from it, you know, which. Which really validates us as artists, and it speaks to the value of our work.

Jamila Taffe [01:02:24] So how has your race or other aspects of your identity played a role within your art?

Vince Robinson [01:03:41] It’s played a very significant role in my art because, one, it’s about having an ability to provide a counternarrative, you know, because of prejudice, biases, stereotypes, and all those things. People see you in a certain way, and then you can dispel all those things with your art. So you could be walking down the street, you know, and somebody would see you as this threat, right? Just because of the fact that you have melanin, just because your skin might be darker than others. And then you start singing a song. It could be “Amazing Grace.” I don’t know why I picked that song, because I have disdain for that song. But I just- I’m just putting it out there. You start singing “Amazing Grace,” you know, and then, you know, the whitest white person will look at you a different way just because of the way you sound, the way you emote. You know that there will be a difference in your perspective. And you could look at it in a larger sense, look at athletics, you know, or you could look at something like music. You know, back in the day, Sammy Davis Jr. couldn’t perform in certain clubs, couldn’t walk through the front door, you know, but he could stand on that stage and entertain people.

Jamila Taffe [01:04:09] So when it comes to artists of color, especially Black artists, right, there are times when their art reflects ideas of Black liberation, Black joy, or just encompassing the Black experience. So does your art, whether that be through your music, your poetry, or your photography, does it reflect these sort of ideas?

Vince Robinson [01:08:13] Absolutely does. Absolutely. I think one of the things about the music photography is that it depicts the beauty of the artist, be it a male or female. I just recently was in an exhibition at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, and it was about Black life, you know, and the images that I had, 14 different photographs, but they were all of Black people. And so people literally from around the world who were leaving Cleveland had an opportunity to see these images. And I was very intentional about showing us in a positive light, you know, but then there were some subtleties. For instance, one of the images that I selected was an image of Dr. Quad, David Whitaker, who is also Nana Kwaku Kwamena II. And it was a picture of him standing in front of a screen that had an image of a helicopter in it. And he was explaining in that moment about why he calls himself the Tenth Man. And there’s- There’s an explanation that I can’t really give you right now. But what resonates with me about Dr. Whitaker is that he exemplifies the meaning of African American. He is an Akan chief. He was born in Cleveland. Well, I don’t know if he was born in Cleveland, but he lived most of his life here in Cleveland. He is a psychologist and a lawyer. He went to John Carroll University and Cleveland State University at the same time, and he actually got both of his degrees at the same time. He visited Ghana, West Africa. And while he was there, they asked him to be a Chief. And his first assignment was to build a community center. So he didn’t really have a whole lot of money, but the little money that he had, he donated that to the cause. Well, after a period of a couple years, that was built. And he has been back and forth to Ghana several times. He has a residence there. He’s very active in Ghana because he is a chief, and his chief is the chief over a council of chiefs. So it’s not about him going over there and, you know, living off retirement savings and just coasting through. He’s over there doing things, and he’s here doing things. And he’s very intentional about being connected with Pan Africanism. So I said all that to say that anybody who walked by that picture and saw his name and did any amount of research or homework would find out who he is and what he’s doing. And then on top of that, I’ve had interviews with him on the radio, because I didn’t mention it, but I do radio and television still. And so they can hear interviews they. That he’s done. And he talks about our plight, and he talks about things that we can do to move the needle forward in terms of progress as a people. So that’s related to the Black experience. And that was something that I was able to depict in just that one image alone.

Jamila Taffe [01:08:21] And besides that, in your role with the Larchmere Art Center, what else or like, what other types of work have you done within the Cleveland community?

Vince Robinson [01:09:59] Well, I guess it’s kind of related, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Cavanagh Faith Walker. He’s a gentleman that I met back in the late ’90s, and he was responsible for bringing me into the world of art activism. So he had something called the NEAH Arts Alliance, and he was doing programs for various entities in Cleveland. But the whole intention was to connect young people with art. And at the time, he was in community engagement at the Cleveland Museum of Art. So because of. We call him Cav, affectionately because of Cav, I ended up with a show at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which was a poetry event first and third Fridays in the Oasis Room. So I would bring my group in and we would put on these performances twice a month. But as a result of that connection, I got into the whole idea of art advocacy, and it has led to me serving on the board of the assembly for the Arts, as well as serving on the board for the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. And I’m also on the board of Little Lumpy’s center for educational initiatives. So, yeah, that’s how I’ve gotten into other things that involve art advocacy aside from what’s happening at Larchmere Arts.

Jamila Taffe [01:10:19] So when thinking back over your career so far, what are you most proud of?

Vince Robinson [01:11:36] I would probably have to say that my book being published in 2015 because it was just something that took so long for me to accomplish. I started writing poetry as a student at Kent State University back in the ’70s, you know, and that book didn’t get published until 2015. I was published in other books and I wrote a chapter and a publication called Cleveland Scenes, and it was about the poetry scene in Cleveland. I did record a CD called - yeah, I don’t want to say it was name of my book because that was something else. But I think the book is probably the pinnacle of my success as a writer. I’ve done two solo exhibitions at Kent State University in the Uumbaji Gallery. That happened after visiting Ghana with a group of students two years, 2019, 2017. We went over and I documented their experience and films were made with the images, the video on the stills that I produced for that. So that’s another meaningful accomplishment. The inclusion in the airport shows is huge because of that. So many people have seen my work. But I probably have to say the book is probably my greatest accomplishment as a writer.

Jamila Taffe [01:12:10] What advice would you give the younger generation of aspiring artists?

Vince Robinson [01:13:19] Speak your truth. I think that’s the most important thing that you can do as an artist, is to. To do what resonates with you. You know, I connected someone with an opportunity to do a live painting at the Juneteenth festival that occurred on Mall C this year. And I was having a conversation with them after the fact, and they told me what they wanted to paint and what they ended up painting. And they ended up painting something other than what they wanted to paint because they had concern about how it would be received. But the thing is, there was a very legitimate point that would have been made had they chosen to do what they originally intended to do. And now they have to live with the regret of not having done what they should have done. So rather than put yourself in that position, do what your voice tells you to do. You know, be true to yourself as an artist. Sometimes people may not receive it well, but sometimes from discomfort comes the change that we’re seeking. So you have to speak truth to authority. Otherwise you’ll continue to be subjected to whatever they want to subject you to.

Jamila Taffe [01:13:48] What gives you hope?

Vince Robinson [01:16:19] What gives me hope is seeing young people who are intelligent, who are engaged, who are expressive, who are talented, and who are taking the baton and running with it. That’s what gives me hope. When I listen to some of these young poets and the words that they’re speaking, When I see some of these young musicians standing on stage playing that music, that was a challenge for me to learn. And they’re doing it so beautifully. That’s what gives me hope. You know, we look around and we see so many things that are going wrong in our society. And, you know, mass media has a way of perpetuating all the negativity that happens in our world. And don’t get me wrong, I get flustered when I’m writing and I see something. Somebody toss litter out the window and. Or, you know, you just look around and you see things happening. You see empty lots and all those other kinds of things. But my hope is in people who are purposeful, who are collaborative, who are willing to put their egos aside in the interest of progress for everyone. That’s what gives me hope. Just knowing that there are so many people who are living their lives in this world to make a difference. You know, I do a radio show once a week, and the intent of that radio show is to just share with the world people who are making a difference in the lives of other people. And what happens is people look around and they see something that exemplifies a need that needs to be fulfilled. And we can sit around and wait for the government to do everything or wait for the government to give us money to do things. But sometimes it’s like, you see that piece of paper on the ground, you can pick it up and throw it in the trash. And yeah, the person who left it there, they were pretty ignorant. But that doesn’t mean that you have to live with the trash on the ground. You know, pick it up, beautify your neighborhood. I do it all the time. You know, I have a house on the corner, and for whatever reason, when the wind blows, it always blows the trash into my yard, you know, and I’m, you know, I don’t have a Better Homes and Gardens house. You’re not going to open up the magazine and see a picture of my house in it, but at the same time, you know, I’ll pick up the garbage because it just needs to be picked up. And I think if people took that approach, we’d have a much better world to live in because we would be responsible.

Jamila Taffe [01:16:37] So is there anything else you’d like to share?

Vince Robinson [01:17:13] No, I just appreciate the opportunity to share different aspects of my life. I am extremely appreciative for what Third Space Action Lab is doing and I’m very happy that they’re in this space because this is a historic space for this city. You know, the architect who designed this building and the people who occupied this building historically have been extremely significant. So just to know that we are perpetuating what was started is so meaningful to me. So I thank you for the opportunity to share my life with you and your listening audience. And thank you for doing what you do.

Jamila Taffe [01:17:30] Thank you for participating. You have some really good insights. Erich?

Erich Schnack [01:17:35] I’ve got some follow-up questions. So Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, many jazz legends have passed away within the past couple of years. Who do we look out for? Who are the folks that are going to drive that music into the future?

Vince Robinson [01:19:46] You have local musicians who are driving that music into the future. And I’m glad you mentioned Pharaoh Sanders and Wayne Shorter because they are two individuals that I had the opportunity to see, but also to shoot. I saw Pharaoh Sanders in Detroit the year before he transitioned and he was coming out of the venue and they had him in a wheelchair. And I didn’t have a chance to have a long conversation or interview or anything, but I had an opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated his music. But just this past year, we had this young lady named Samara Joyce on stage. 23 years old and looking older than 23, which is not to say that she looked old. I will say that she looked mature for 23. And somebody said, can you imagine what she’ll be like in three to five years? And I said, three to five years. Imagine what she’ll be like when she gets 40. You know, she’s going to be a standard bearer in the same way that Ella Fitzgerald or, or Sarah Vaughn or Nancy Wilson or anybody of that caliber. But locally, you know, we’ve got musicians like Johnnie Cochran Jr. Javon Bogart and Theron Brown and Dan Wilson. I mean, there are so many. And these guys, Theron and Dan Wilson, they’re already at an international level, even though they’re as young as they are. So we’ve got a lot of folks that will be the standard-bearers. And they’re evolving as we speak.

Erich Schnack [01:19:50] We actually have, we have an oral history lined up with Theron, talk about some of his work. Let’s see, I got a couple more here. You mentioned your one friend that he played with Dizzy Gillespie. Did your friend tell any stories about Dizzy and how he was his character?

Vince Robinson [01:20:15] Reggie wasn’t that kind of guy. So as, as much as I would have loved to heard those stories, I really heard more stories about people that he didn’t like.

Erich Schnack [01:20:34] You mentioned that you did an interview with McCoy Tyner. Could you tell us a little bit about that interview and his personality and what you took away from that experience?

Vince Robinson [01:23:19] Yes, he was appearing at a place called Rhythms of Playhouse Square, right across the street from the Palace Theater. And at that time I was on, on this quest to understand improvisation, you know, I was growing as a musician, you know, and even though I knew what I knew, I knew that I didn’t know a lot and I knew that I needed to know more and I just wanted to understand how was it that you’re able to do that. And the advice that he gave me was to listen to everybody. And I’ve had that conversation with quite a few others. I mentioned the, the interview that I did with Eddie Harris. It was pretty much the same thing. Eddie, though, he gave me a book called Astrology and Music that he had written, and it was quite an interesting book. But McCoy, he was very down to earth. He wasn’t pretentious at all, you know, and sometimes as an interviewer, you can ask some pretty dumb questions. Like, I was in my basement a couple years ago looking for a tape because I needed to do something with a cassette tape. And I ran across this tape, wasn’t labeled. I popped it into my cassette player and it was me interviewing Herbie Hancock. And I was, it was like the, the 20 year old, 20-something year old Vince interviewing Herbie Hancock. And I’m listening to my questions and I’m like, oh my God, I can’t believe, I can’t believe I asked him that. I was like, I was just cringy. It was terrible. But you know, he was very gracious, very gracious about it. And he didn’t say, man, that was a stupid question, question. But when I had the conversation with McCoy, it was just like, you know, two people having conversation. He was sitting at the bar and I asked him questions. And again, he was very effusive in his responses and he told me what I needed to hear, but he was a great person. And then a few years later, I had occasion to shoot him at Detroit Jazz Festival. He did a concert with Savion Glover. So Savion was tapping and he was playing. It was a beautiful experience.

Erich Schnack [01:23:22] So you got Max Roach, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock. How did you, how did you find these folks to talk with? I mean, just through the vine or?

Vince Robinson [01:23:34] Well, when I interviewed Max Roach, I was working at WJMO radio, so that’s been my connection. You know, working in media gives you access to folks, so that’s how that happened.

Erich Schnack [01:23:51] May I ask what was the silly question you asked Herbie?

Vince Robinson [01:23:56] Oh, you know, it was such a bad memory, I put it out of my mind.

Erich Schnack [01:24:07] One last question here. Cleveland has a rich jazz history. Art Tatum cutting his chops on Cedar Avenue. Of course, Winston Willis’s Jazz Temple. How do you look back on that legacy? And what would be the best way for historians and people trying to remember that history? What would be the best way to go forward to tell those stories?

Vince Robinson [01:25:05] There are some local people who have a really sincere interest in preserving that memory for folks to have access to. The person that comes to mind is Fred Wheat, and Fred has created an online museum or, yeah, like an online hall of fame, so to speak. So connecting with those kinds of folks. A good friend of mine, Reverend Dr. Leah Lewis, has done a film on Leo’s Casino. And then there are a few other folks who are connected who are kind of telling that story. So I would say just having an awareness and a connection to those who have that interest, that’s one of the ways that we can address that.

Erich Schnack [01:25:36] Actually, I had one more question for you. You mentioned that your father was the president of the NAACP?

Vince Robinson [01:25:44] In Ross County, Ohio.

Erich Schnack [01:25:45] In Ross County, Ohio. Okay.

Vince Robinson [01:25:47] And my sister succeeded him after another gentleman served in that capacity for a few years, and then he stepped away and she stepped in.

Erich Schnack [01:26:00] What years would have that been when he was president?

Vince Robinson [01:26:07] Definitely during the ’90s. He was president for 19 years, and he retired somewhere around 1994, ’95, ’96, somewhere around in there. But during the decade of the ’90s and the first part of the decade of the 2000s, he would have been in that capacity.

Erich Schnack [01:26:39] Okay, that’s all I have. Okay, thank you very much.

Vince Robinson [01:26:44] All right. I hope I answered the questions.

Jamila Taffe [01:26:46] Oh, you did beautifully.

Erich Schnack [01:26:47] Absolutely.

Vince Robinson [01:32:39] Because you always think about, well, I should have said this, I should have said that. You know, and sometimes in the process of answering a question, you might go off on a different tangent, and then you have to remember to bring it back. That happens to me when I’m asking questions, you know, but I’ve, you know, I’ve been interviewing people since I was in high school. I didn’t tell this story. But, you know, when I was in California, I was a freshman in high school, and I had been playing football, you know, and me playing football is one of the- Brought the greatest joy to my dad because he played football. He wanted to see his son play football. My first year playing football, we were in Okinawa at the time. And I was the most valuable player. I was the best offensive player. They gave out five trophies that night, and me and my brother walked away with three of them. So he was geeked about me playing football. But then I became a freshman and I weighed all of 130, 35 pounds. And there were guys out there that weighed 200, 220, 250, 300. And something about that math just did not add up to me. And I wasn’t one of them little scrappy players with a bunch of heart. I was like, I think I’m done with this. So I got into speech and so, speech, debate, you know. And then we moved back to Massillon. And so Massillon is football, high school football USA. I mean, we at the time, and this is 1974, we have a 20,000-seat stadium. And I am the color announcer and I’m in speech. I’m doing radio, I’m doing television, I’m doing all this in high school. So, you know, I started early. So I’ve been interviewing people ever since then, you know, so radio was a natural fit for me. But what happened with this whole insurance thing? I was working at WERE News Talk 1300 and the station got sold. Metropolis Broadcasting from Detroit came in, bought the station. And so, you know, usually when a new company comes in, they clean house. They didn’t sweep everybody out the door, but they swept me out. And so I was looking for a job in radio in Cleveland for like three or four months. And the best I could do was a part-time news position at WCPN. And I’m like, I can’t work part-time. I need a full-time job. So I went to an employment agency. And the first one that bit was State Farm. The very first interview that I got was with State Farm Insurance. And they said, well, you know, because of your radio background, you have excellent communication skills and you are a reporter. So you have good investigative skills too. So, yeah, you’d be great for this job. And then thirdly, they needed some Black people. So I had three things going for me and I got the job. And I’m in this job and I’m thinking, okay, I’m gonna do this for a couple years and I’m gonna find me another job. Well, I went to Channel 5. Channel 5. I called the news director one day, he says, oh, you’re in town? And I’m like, yeah. Why are you asking me that question to myself? I’m asking that question because I’m calling him for an interview because I want to be a television news reporter. Well, I ended up coming to the station for my interview. News director’s not there. Assistant news director Bob Olive greets me. Me. And he’s standing there, and there’s another guy standing next to him and he says, vince Robinson, meet Vince Robinson. What? I wasn’t happy about that because not only did I have to meet somebody with my name, he got my job and we’re covering stories together. So just to show you how things come from full circle, I end up meeting his ex-wife. And she and I are really good friends now, you know. So her name is Robin Robinson. She’s an artist, muralist. She’s connected with Third Space. But yeah. So Channel 5 didn’t work. Channel 8. I showed up early for my interview. Tell a receptionist. Receptionist supposed to call the secretary, Virgil Dominic, the news director. She didn’t call Virgil. So 10 minutes after 1, I’m still sitting in the lobby. My window had passed. She- Channel 3. I meet the news director walking out of the building. He takes my résumé, he folds it up, he puts it in his pocket. He says, this is the top 10 market. I can get talent from anywhere in the country. I don’t need you. That’s what he told me. So.

Jamila Taffe [01:32:49] But you didn’t stop?

Vince Robinson [01:33:14] Yeah, I didn’t stop. So, you know, but- But State Farm kept throwing the money at me. Five years later, I’m making way more than I ever made in radio. So the money is good, you know. But 27 years later, I’m like, time to call it a day. I can’t do this anymore. So I let the job go, you know. But, yeah, I thought somehow I would be able to get back into broadcasting the way I really wanted to. But now, you know, have, like, efforts to go back. Oh, no, I’m, I’m, I’m telling you. I do two radio shows and a television show and, and podcasts. I’ve got a YouTube channel with almost 300 videos of now.

Erich Schnack [01:33:38] So where can we find you on YouTube?

Vince Robinson [01:33:41] Vince Robinson.

Erich Schnack [01:33:42] Vince Robinson.

Vince Robinson [01:33:43] Yes.

Jamila Taffe [01:33:43] All right.

Vince Robinson [01:33:45] Yeah.

Jamila Taffe [01:33:48] I wanted to ask you about the Amazing Grace song because I remember someone telling me about that. Wasn’t it like a-

Erich Schnack [01:33:54] Here, I’ll stop.

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