Texas country singer Charlie Robison, who ‘walked to his own beat,’ died at 59. Complications from a medical procedure forced him to quit singing in 2018.
Texas country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison, who represented the Red Dirt sound and resisted the conventions of Nashville’s music scene, died over the weekend at 59.
Robison died Sunday at a hospital in San Antonio after cardiac arrest and other complications, a family representative told the Associated Press. Complications from a previous medical procedure had forced the “My Hometown” singer to give up performing in 2018, but earlier this year he was in the midst of a comeback, playing shows across his home state.
“It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that my husband, Charlie Robison has passed away today, surrounded by his family and friends,” wrote his wife, Kristen Robinson, in a Facebook post Sunday. “My heart is broken. Please pray for me, our children and our family,” she continued.
Robison also is survived by ex-wife Emily Strayer, founding member of country supergroup The Chicks, with whom he had three children before their divorce in 2008. The Chicks had announced Saturday that they had moved their concert date in Winnipeg from Tuesday to Monday, citing “an urgent family matter.”
Growing up on his family’s ranch in the Texas county of Bandera, after which he would name his debut album in 1996, Robison was surrounded by a mosaic of sounds: honky-tonk blasting on the radio, live shows from local country and Mexican folk bands, and traditional dances to polka music with his family, which traced their roots to Germany. He also drew inspiration from other Red Dirt and Outlaw country music stars, notably singer-songwriters Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett.
After his grandmother bought him a drum set while he was in junior high, Robison formed a band with his brother, Bruce Robison, he told Australian radio show “Casey Radio” in 2012.
