Peter Robinson, DC’s Piano Man

In his dinner jacket and black tie, Peter Robinson eases onto
the piano bench in Quill, the lounge in downtown DC’s luxe Jefferson
hotel. It’s 9 PM and soon the strains of “As Time Goes By” fill the room.
From there, Robinson segues seamlessly from song to song, mainly familiar
selections by the likes of Cole Porter, Gershwin, and Hoagy Carmichael,
plus jazzy interpretations of tunes by more recent artists such as the
Beatles, James Taylor, and Carole King. Throughout the evening, he takes
his cues from the mood—and requests—of the crowd, occasionally throwing in
one of his own compositions.

After midnight, he retrieves the crutches stashed along the
wall beside the piano, bids the remaining patrons goodnight, and heads
home.

It’s a routine Robinson has followed most nights for the past
three decades. The third of four children of a surgeon father and
homemaker mother, Robinson grew up in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. In one of
the rare cases of a child’s being stricken with polio in utero, Robinson
was born with a paralyzed right leg and with limited use of his right arm.
Like his siblings, he began taking piano lessons at age six. Soon music
became his shelter and his passion.

Making it his livelihood took time. After graduating from
Princeton, where he played in a jazz/rock band, Robinson moved to
Washington and worked first in the office of Kansas senator Bob Dole and
later for Congressman Larry Winn Jr., also of Kansas. While working on
Capitol Hill, Robinson heard Washington’s now legendary cocktail pianist
John Eaton and became his student. In time, Robinson left the Hill and
became a full-time pianist, playing hotel bars, restaurants, and other
venues.

Over the years, in addition to the Jefferson, he has played the
Fairfax Hotel, the Georgetown Inn, the Old Ebbitt Grill, the Sofitel, and
more. He recorded his first album live at the Jefferson in 1984 and has
since recorded four more, the most recent being 2010’s Some of the
Best Songs You’ve Never Heard, which features 19 Robinson
originals.

He lives with his wife, Mary, a strategy and fundraising
consultant for nonprofits, and their two college-age children in Bethesda.
Robinson recently sat down over lunch on a day off and talked about what
he’s learned.

Most people who hear you play never know it, but you had polio
as an infant, right?

I had polio the day I was born. They looked at me and said this
kid’s not moving enough. My right leg wasn’t moving at all, and the right
arm was compromised. I saw a lot of doctors the first couple years of my
life, had operations to release tendons that were constricted, and then
more operations when I was 14 and 15. But my right leg still didn’t work,
so I couldn’t play sports. But I started playing piano at age six and alto
sax at age nine. Music has been my go-to place for a long
time.

What was it like growing up?

To some degree your journey is different from other people’s.
When people want to take walks or go skiing, you don’t go—or you sit on
the sidelines.

In junior high, I went to cotillion because that’s what
everybody did. But I couldn’t dance, and it was no fun. Same with
high-school prom. Freshman year at college, I went to one or two mixers,
but it didn’t make sense.

But then what evolved was, by playing in a rock band I got to
be there, but instead of dancing I was playing for the people dancing, and
that became a pattern for me—a way to be at the party. And you know,
sometimes when I play it’s almost as if I’m dancing.

All in all, you’re pretty mobile.

I get around. But shorter distances are now the limit. Walking
is not recreational.

But consider this: Our daughter has dyslexia, which I had never
encountered. For her, reading is like walking is for me. Most everybody
thinks: Let’s go for a walk. Well, I don’t want to take a walk—it’s not
enjoyable for me. And everyone says reading is fun, but for her reading
will always be uncomfortable.

Your surgeries didn’t solve all the problems.

My right leg is basically flail. So I have a brace, which is
effectively a steel splint. My left leg is compromised somewhat, but it’s
functional.

Your arms and hands work the piano very well. Is there
pain?

No, I’m fine, though my right thumb is weak. That’s why I don’t
play classical music. It asks you to do things I can’t do—stretches I
can’t make. But I can self-express. The model on that was the guitar
player Django Reinhardt. He had a couple of fingers missing. So you learn
how to do what you can’t do. There’s a saying: Classical players play
what’s on the page; jazz players play what’s not on the page.

Did you major in music at Princeton?

My parents were saying, “Be a lawyer—let music be a hobby.” But
I wanted to be a music major. When I told the department that what I liked
was pop and jazz and Broadway, they said, “We have no one in our
department who has any interest in that.”

I was so disappointed, I dropped out for a year. But I came
back as an English major because I wanted to graduate and I loved
English—plus I’d already read a lot of books, so I figured I could spend
time playing music as an English major, which is what I did.

After college you came to Washington.

I was trying to be a songwriter, but through a weird set of
circumstances, I was offered a job working for Senator Bob Dole. I only
stayed ten months on the Hill that time, but shortly after I arrived Vice
President Agnew resigned, and right before I left President Nixon
resigned. I had nothing to do with either. But what a time to be on the
Hill.

Why did you leave?

I wanted to play music. But I wasn’t good enough to get
full-time work. I was playing at a place near the Tune Inn one night a
week and living in a really cheap place. But I ran out of money and moved
back to Kansas City, where I could make a living. I played the Muehlebach
Hotel there for 3½ years.

“Paying music, even in hotel bars, is a lot simpler ethically than politics,” says Robinson.

What brought you back to DC?

Eventually I saw there was a ceiling in Kansas City and I had
reached it. I was going to maybe take grad courses in music, and then
Larry Winn, the congressman, wandered into my life. I was playing in this
country club on a Friday night, and he came in. I recognized him. I’d
never met him, but I thought it would be fun to ask him some political
questions, because he was known as a guy who couldn’t be riled into making
controversial statements.

So after a drink he says, “You’re the piano player—why are you
asking me these questions?” I said, “I used to work on the Hill.” It
turned out a legislative assistant in DC had given him notice that day. So
he says, “Come work for me.” That was October ’79.

But politics ultimately was not your cup of tea. Why did you
leave the Hill?

Early on, a lawyer on a committee staff told me, “There’s a guy
in town named John Eaton. You got to hear him play piano.” So I did, and
it knocked me out. He was playing Rodgers & Hart and Hoagy Carmichael,
and people were loving it.

I started going to hear him in the Fairfax Hotel bar as often
as I could afford—in fact, more often. One night John said, “I see you
here a lot, and frankly you don’t look like you can afford it.” And I
said, “I play piano.” I ended up studying with him for two years while I
worked on the Hill.

After a while, he invited me to sub for him one night. Then I
started playing on the night John didn’t—Sunday night at the time. When
John went down to five nights a week, I got Monday night, too.

After a while I realized, You know, the best part of my
life is Sunday and Monday night. I mean, I’m working all week in a
congressional office and don’t like it nearly as much as the two nights
I’m playing in the Fairfax bar. So I got a job playing at the Marbury
House, now the Latham Hotel. I kept the Fairfax job on Sunday and Monday
nights, so I was working seven nights a week.

I left the Hill in January of ’82, and I’ve played full-time
ever since.

And here you are playing the Jefferson hotel 30 years
later.

Yeah, I first played the Jefferson in 1983, when it was owned
by Edward Bennett Williams, the founder of Williams & Connolly.
Actually, my contract was with the Baltimore Orioles, which Williams also
owned. I didn’t know why it was set up that way, but Williams would come
into the bar showing some important person around, and he would pat me on
the back while I played and say, “We pay him to sit on the bench!” He
liked the joke.

That was a great year. I made my first album and got engaged to
my wife. Then Williams sold the Jefferson, and I moved over to the
Fairfax. It’s great to be back at the Jefferson now. I’m three years into
this run and hoping it lasts a long time.

Hotels are interesting places. You see different kinds of people
in interesting circumstances. There’s often libation involved. What have
you seen?

Well, I’ve never seen a bar fight. A couple times I’ve wondered
if one might break out.

In the ’80s, there was a lady of the night I got to know—not in
her professional capacity. She asked me to play “I Wish You Love” whenever
she’d walk in, and I did. Usually she seemed to have an appointment to
meet somebody. That was back in the ’80s, and she was the first person I
ever saw who had a credit-card processor in her purse. It wasn’t
electronic, but it would do the imprint. I said to her, “What do you write
on that?” She said, “Oh, I just write, ‘Entertainment.’ ”

Does a good bit of that go on?

Ask Eliot Spitzer.

Along those lines, a man and a woman used to come in and hear
me play—more than once a month, and it went on for years. They were
charming, and they obviously enjoyed being together. A couple of years
into the deal, the woman came up rather nervous and said, “Tonight I’m
coming in with my husband. Act like there’s nothing going on.”

I had always thought it was her husband. But here’s
this guy I had never seen before, and I had to act like none of that other
stuff had ever happened.

Do you ever miss politics?

Not really. Really, not at all. Playing music, even in hotel
bars, is a lot simpler ethically than politics.

What do you mean?

This may sound naive, but you know, on the Hill letters to
members get personal responses. Staffers ghostwrite most replies, which
get sent up to be approved and signed with the member’s name.

Back when I worked for Senator Dole, a letter came to my desk
from a Kansas farmer’s wife. I wrote the response, and it was signed and
sent off. Weeks later, another letter came from her saying, “Senator, we
had no idea you would have time to read my letter, let alone answer it,
and we are so touched that we’ve framed your letter and hung it in our
living room. Thank you!”

Somebody higher up in the office wrote “Great job” on the
letter and sent it back to me. I doubt Bob Dole ever saw any of
it.

That same person told me that a properly crafted response to a
constituent letter translated to 4.8 votes or whatever, so answering the
mail was very important. I’m sure that’s right—and it’s true, everyone
does it—but it troubled me then, and it still does.

Back to music: You pretty much stick with the greats in your
show.

If you have a restaurant and you know what people buy, aren’t
you going to serve those things? At the same time, you play what you’re
able to play—a pizza place doesn’t serve Chinese food.

My niche—my food—is Cole Porter and Gershwin. Richard Rodgers
is maybe my favorite. Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, that kind of stuff.
I love the Beatles and Carole King. And classic rock ’n’ roll—Elvis
Presley and all that. Altogether, the repertoire is maybe 2,000
songs.

But it is limited to my ability. Some things are dependent on
machinery. And you can’t do everything on an acoustic piano.

It’s hard to do a lot of Clapton—

Yeah, I don’t think I’d do a great “Layla.”

The stuff you write is similar to what you play, though you
write in varied styles. Is there a natural Peter Robinson
style?

Here’s a story. When I was just out of college, some family
friends knew John Kander. He wrote the music to “New York, New York,”
Cabaret, Chicago. It was 1973, and I got to spend a couple hours
with him. I had sent him tapes of my songs, and his advice was don’t write
using an instrument—it limits what you’re able to do.

If you can free yourself from your instrument, you can free
yourself from your limitations. Write what you can hear in your head
because, hopefully, that’s more open. The goal is to write in different
styles rather than to find your style. This is so different from the
singer/songwriter model that dominates today.

Back to the Washington hotel scene. My sense is you don’t see as
many politicians—senators, congressmen—in hotel bars these days. Is that
right?

I’d say that at least since the first half of the ’90s, most of
them don’t want to be seen in bars. I mean, you don’t need to go to a bar
for a drink. And everyone’s got cell phones now, and they’ll take pictures
of you.

Do you get a lot of lobbyists?

Yeah. A lobbyist who’s a regular at Quill told me he recently
got a contract because the clients were impressed that he knew the piano
player. We get aides, too, because it’s a go-to place for a nice night
out. It’s grown-up.

Really?

I read on a website some customer comments about a bar I’ve
played in—a nice place. A person wrote in and said, “A great place to
score” or whatever and cited as evidence “the girl I heard moaning in the
men’s room.” Of course, I’m not sure the bar would want that
known.

Talk about raising children as a musician—you work at
night.

Well, it was good when they were little because I’m there in
the day. It’s the night that’s hard. I’m on a different schedule. I quit
playing at 12 or 1 am, and I’m wound up on coffee and performing, so it’s
usually at least 2:25 before I get in bed, or later.

And the kids have to be up and off to school.

Yeah, and the public-school children were getting on the buses
at 6:20.

What’s the hardest part of playing in bars?

Over the long haul, you’ve got to find a way to not get used
up. You’ve got to get a healthy pattern.

You don’t drink when you’re playing.

No. I used to, and now I almost never do. I find I get kind of
draggy—or soggy.

The hardest part, to be frank, is wishing you could spend more
evenings with your wife. She would like to have fun more nights of the
week, but I play five—Tuesday through Saturday—at the Jefferson, so we
don’t have many opportunities to go out. And I’m sure she wishes I made
more money.

Oh, the finances of a piano player. You get a salary—are tips a
part of it?

Yeah, though some places won’t allow you to have a tip jar. I
may be one of the few piano players who reports tips on my
1040.

Are people generous?

It’s surprising how there is no correlation as far as I can
tell with the product I put out. One night I can play really well, and
there aren’t any tips. Another night you maybe think you’re not playing so
well, and somebody will feel really touched and unexpectedly tip
you.

What’s the best thing, the most fun thing, about what you
do?

I get to play music. Was it Duke Ellington who said there’s
only two kinds of music—good music and bad music? I try to make the best
music I can. When it’s good enough, it makes customers happy. And that
makes me happy. I love my job.

Senior editor Ken DeCell and pianist Peter Robinson played
music at Princeton and worked on Capitol Hill at the same times. Hear
Robinson’s original songs at bullenemusic.com.

This article appears in the January 2013 issue of The Washingtonian.

Ken DeCell