Dixie Chicks’ Influence Rubbed Off on Charlie Robison

3 Jul 09

Looks like all those years with a Dixie Chick rubbed off on Charlie Robison. He may have divorced the Chicks’ Emily Robison, but it sounds like he’s married to that whole fiddle and steel and mandolin brand of music. (That said, there’s not one single banjo lick on the entire album.) Although he may consider himself too hip to be pigeon-holed as country, his new album, Beautiful Day, is countrier than most Texas country artists ever strive for.

There’s some solid fiddle in “Middle of the Night” and “If the Rain Don’t Stop.” And some oddly cheery mandolin nestled in “Down Again.” But even though “El Cerrito Place” was a hit video for Robison a few years ago, I don’t know if this album will take him as far into the mainstream as his Lone Star country-rock brethren Pat Green and Jack Ingram.

The lyrics, though, are where Robison’s true range of emotions come into play. This is not the music you play at a summer barbeque. Nor is it the straightforward life-is-tough country downers that occasionally make it onto the radio. The stories here are as deep, raw and painful as Robison’s life must have been as he watched his marriage dissolve. Like on “Reconsider,” which much like Faith Hill’s “Cry,” is a broken-hearted lament for love to come back home.

But like any strong man with a pen and a guitar, Robison is over it by track nine, “She’s So Fine.” I’ve never gone through a divorce. But if I ever do, I would want Robison’s music by my side. Together we’d commiserate, bitch, plead and then move on.

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