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Before there were the Jacksons and before the Osbournes became an MTV phenomenon, there was the Robinson Family. And there still is.
We’re talking a lot of Robinsons here – father and mother, eight adults (including spouses), five grandsons, and four dogs – who tour the U.S. and Canada with their wholesome brand of family entertainment.
The Robinson Family is the headliner act Aug. 10, the second full day of the annual Washington County Fair at Arden. The show is at 7:30 p.m. in the big show tent.
The Robinsons have been touring together for 40 years with their brand of high-energy entertainment. Their show is packed with old favorite country songs, the classics (think Andrew Sisters), and a whole lot of music that was popular in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s.
Not bad for what started out as a two-piece bluegrass act.
“Back in the ’60s, when it seems everybody was playing the guitar, Dad knew three chords, that’s all, and he taught them to Mother,” said Susanna Holder, one of Jackie and Mary Ruth Robinson’s twin daughters – the touring one.
“Dad was a professor of history and the philosophy of science at Syracuse University at the time,” Holder said, “and people who came to our house at the time and heard them play and sing thought they were pretty good.
“We’ll, Dad found out that they could make $100 a weekend playing in this particular bar in upstate New York. Mother said no to that idea at first, but pretty soon gave in.”
And the next thing you knew, the Robinson Family was playing a honky-tonk called Petticoat Junction in West Winfield, N.Y., and for the growing family, the cash came in handy.
“My twin sister, Julia, and I were 8 when we played that place,” Susanna Holder said, “and we joined the tour when we were 12. She no longer tours with us; she’s a homemaker, and a good one at that, who lives in Canada with her husband and children.”
When asked how the Robinsons avoid the dysfunction common to some other show business families, Holder could only chuckle.
“That’s easy,” she said. “We love country music and people, and when you put those together, you prove that families can work together and stay together as long as we communicate among ourselves and with the people who come to see us perform.”
She laughed on remembering what one woman said, in astonishment, on meeting the family after one of their shows.
“She said she couldn’t believe that all of us got along so well together while she and her sister, who lived in the same town but whose paths did not cross on purpose, did not.
“That woman said, ‘I really love that you and your family gets along together so well, but I wouldn’t go to a chicken fight with my sister,’ Well, she brought that sister to the show to see us, and you know what? They got along well together while they were here.”
The Robinson Family travels from stop to stop in a caravan of three buses, two tractor-trailers and a couple of cars.
She and her husband, who is the bookkeeper on the road as well as one of the sound and lighting technicians, and their 3-year-old twin sons, enjoy the tour for the most part.
“The hard part of touring is sometimes you don’t always have hot water to bathe and shower,” she said. “And another thing: It’s hard not to go to the same church every Sunday. You miss that and you miss seeing your friends.