[1] Robbins began playing with the percussion section of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra as a high school student.
[2] He met his future wife, Mary Bledsoe, then a collegiate flautist, as a student at UCLA.
[1] Robbins left UCLA before his graduation and enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1951.
[7] Robbins became the manager of The Gaslight Cafe, a former folk music club in New York City's Greenwich Village, during the late 1960s.
[1][4] The club saw performances by well known musicians early in their careers, including Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen.
[2] He also founded the Occasional Singers, a choral group which performed "avant garde" music, according to the New York Times.
[3] Gil Robbins died at his home in Esteban Cantu, Baja California, Mexico from prostate cancer on April 5, 2011, two days after his 80th birthday.