Robinson Brothers Band Bring it Home to Central Park 
By Tricia Chambers, Photo by Larry Sacks
The six musicians that make up the Robinson brothers may not have much time to spend playing together. But it wasn’t apparent from the way they rocked the stage for a full 90-minutes when they performed at last Wednesday’s Concert in the Park.
“Vinny (harmonica) and I call each other sometimes,” said keyboard player Mark Robinson, a Campbell resident well-known at the Triton Museum. “And we’ll say, ‘Hey let’s get together.’ You know, for special things like this.”
The band, a mix of local boys, ripped into a hot combo of blues/honky tonk and rock tunes, amidst a backdrop of hoots and howls from an audience that grew steadily larger as the show got under way.
Fessehaye Tesfay, a 26-year resident of Santa Clara showed up with his wife and son. He couldn’t fight the urge to keep time to the music by tapping his feet and shaking his head. But ask him why he’s not dancing and all he will do is laugh.
As crowded as the Pavilion was, there was still plenty of room for uninhibited adults to strut their stuff to the band’s jam of original tunes like “I’m Going to Marry My Mother-in-Law,” and Santo and Johnny’s 1959 hit, “Sleep Walk.”
It takes half a dozen members to get the Robinson Brothers’ sound. Bass guitarist Dave Gonzales whaled on a brand new guitar from the left side. Maybe out of sight, but just as integral, was drummer Quenston Statin who didn’t miss a beat during his own vocal solo. Blues composer and guitarist Craig Robinson displayed the same raw talent he showcases when he plays regular gigs at Gumbo Jumbo on Market Street in San Jose.
A classically-trained pianist since the age of five, Mark said, “We have all played J.J.’s Blues Club as well as blues clubs from here all the way up to San Francisco.”
According to Mark, each member is required to also perform a vocal solo. ‘Except me. That’s a rule,” he laughed. “The guy can’t sing,” he said of himself in the second-person.
Anyone who could manage to sleep through the excitement was definitely awake when Peter and Craig performed a soulful-ly rowdy rendition of Sam Cooke’s “Bring it on Home to Me.”
That song could’a gone on forever. Yeh, yeh. Yeh.
Next week you can catch the Mission City Opera and the Santa Clara Chorale when they head up the third and final Wednesday Concert at 6:30 p.m.
Show up to the Pavilion on July 12 and you can be a part of the fun when Peter Cor and the Jazzy Devils kick off the first of the seven Sunday concerts which are scheduled to run from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
For more information about the Concert in the Park series visit,
http://www.santaclaraca.gov or call 408.615.2210.
