“Where are you going?
They say you never know,
but I remember laughing
wherever I’d go” – Charlie Robison, “Tonight”
With all of the times I’ve used this space to pay tribute to someone, usually some mover and/or shaker here in Tyler County, this is yet another one of those times, but the context is a bit on the newsworthy side or at least had me pondering a point or two before I wrote it.
Last week, the marketplace of ideas was flooded with tributes to the late Charlie Kirk, who, love him or hate him, he should still be alive. Nobody deserves to go out like that, but as great figures in our culture, as varied as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Dimebag Darrell have demonstrated, being a person with something to say in front of a huge crowd (that often includes sick people) sometimes, and tragically/senselessly, carries with it a high price.
I’m not here to wax poetic on Charlie Kirk’s legacy, as many who were actually big fans of his have done so, and far more eloquently than I ever could, but I am here to shine light on another man named Charlie, who, as I realized last week, also died on Sept. 10, two years prior to Kirk’s assassination.
Charlie Robison was a larger-than-life figure in Texas music, and he was one of the true-blue greats. When Robison died on Sept. 10, 2023, it came as a shock to most of us who love the man and his work. He had, just in the year prior, embarked on a comeback run, and had played his first shows in front of welcoming crowds in several years, since a throat surgery had sidelined him. When Robison announced his retirement in 2018, he never thought he’d sing again, but four years later, there he was playing in front of fans and newcomers to his magic, and then a year later, cardiac arrest silenced all of that.
When Robison died, there was no enormous outpouring of national attention, and it is unfortunate, because Charlie Robison helped to shape a musical culture that deserves to be remembered on its own terms, especially here in Texas.
Robison was part of a ridiculously talented family that also includes two other members of Texas Music royalty: his brother Bruce and sister Robyn Ludwick. As great as those two siblings are, Charlie possessed a voice, a personality and a songwriting voice all his own. He sang with a rough edge and more than a hint of danger/menace in his songs, and nobody would mistake him for a polished product of Nashville, even when he had a big-deal major label deal.
Robison could come across as a weathered everyman telling stories from the far end of the bar, and songs like “My Hometown,” “Barlight,” “New Year’s Day” and “Loving County” not only became anthems in Texas, but earned him critical praise as a strikingly great songwriter, due to the humor, loneliness, recklessness and regret expressed therein.
Charlie Robison also had an uncompromising attitude toward the music business, and his importance cannot be measured solely through record sales or radio chart hits. He helped to prove that Texas musicians could build sustainable, meaningful careers without sacrificing their identity.
He belonged to a tradition in which the song mattered more than marketing, and that tradition includes folks like Willie, Waylon, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen and so many others. It’s a tradition that also shows how imperfect, lived-in voices are far more important at conveying truths than flawless technique.
While Charlie Robison stayed on top of the Texas Music heap for quite some time, and strengthened the reputation of independent music in Texas, he also helped clear space for, and serve as an inspiration for a whole generation of country and Americana performers that followed.
You can guarantee that guys like Koe Wetzel and Cody Johnson have a few Robison tunes in their repertoire of covers, and the great Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours has been known to cover “My Hometown” at shows.
While there is no need to turn remembrance into a competition, and the other Charlie’s violent death was shocking, national political media possesses an immense amplification system, and for some, that mourning was more of a virtue signal or a sort of lifestyle signifier.
Political personalities can dominate television, social media and public conversation long after nearly every other cultural figure has been cast aside, and that imbalance between the life and legacy of a political figure and that of a musician is striking to me.
We Texans should not allow our artists to disappear beneath the din of national politics. Music is such a great source, and good songs bring people together. Charlie Robison gave us songs capable of outliving any sort of political movement or campaign or controversy.
His music captured real life, full of lonely highways, bad decisions, broken dreams and the stubborn affection some folks retain for places that made them.
Charlie Robison left behind more than just a catalog of songs, but a highly recognizable piece of Texas: wounded, funny, restless, unsentimental and fiercely independent. On Sept. 10 each year, amid all of the political remembrances, Texans should crank up “My Hometown” and remember the late, great Charlie Robison, too.
Chris Edwards is editor of the Tyler County Booster, a sister newspaper in the Polk County Publishing Group. He can be reached at cedwards@polkcountypublishing.com.
