Charlie Robison – Life Of The Party

Sure, Texas is the second-biggest state in the union, but is it really fair for them to have that many damn fine singer-songwriters? The Robison clan from the Central Texas town of Bandera managed to produce two of them — Bruce and Charlie. Fresh on the heels of his brother’s recent release Wrapped, Charlie Robison gives us Life Of The Party, another batch of songs by a Texan who will make you wish he was from your state.

Charlie is a gifted singer and performer capable of putting a needed sense of humor into his tales of woe and heartbreak. He knows you might be destined to fail and your bucket might have a hole in it, but sometimes a life’s so doggone pitiful it’s funny.

In “Arms Of Love”, the poor feller hasn’t caught a break his whole life in the game of love, even from the U.S. Postal Service. Like he’s trying to pull the hard luck out of his gut, Robison sings, “Well, I was workin’ real hard/On a Valentine’s Card/To send with my bills and stuff/But the postman snapped/Shot a hole in his sack/I was snatched from the arms of love.”

“Sunset Boulevard” follows a similar path. Robison tells us he’d rather have revelations in the tabloid press about his sexuality, hang out with Charlie Sheen and develop a drug addiction than to worry about his woman half as much.

While Robison is great at honky-tonk rave-ups like “Barlight”, “I Don’t Feel That Way”, and the hilarious “You’re Not The Best” (penned by his brother), the subdued, dead-serious numbers such as “Loving County” and “Molly’s Blues” are perhaps even more powerful.