Charlie Robison, the Texas native and country music heavyweight, died on Sunday, his family said. He was 59, having celebrated his birthday earlier this week. His death was confirmed by Robyn Ludwick, his sister and fellow singer-songwriter. “Today my heart is broken in the deepest most irreparable way,” she wrote. “My big brother Charlie passed away in the arms of his loved ones.” A family representative told the Associated Press that Robison died in a San Antonio hospital after suffering cardiac arrest. Launching his music career in the 1980s after a blown-out knee ended a burgeoning football career, Robison put out his first solo album, Bandera, named after his hometown, in 1996. Two years later, having signed with Sony, he release Life of the Party, and three years after that came Step Right Up, the album on which his only Top 40 country single, “I Want You Bad,” was pressed. A celebrated if niche country figure, Robison officially retired “from the stage and the studio” in 2018, albeit “with a heavy heart,” after throat surgery cost him his ability to sing. He is survived by his wife, Kristen, and four children, three of whom he shared with his first wife, Emily Strayer of the Chicks. Rolling Stonenoted that the Chicks shifted their concert schedule around this week, citing “an urgent family matter.”
