Charlie Robison

Charlie Robison

By the time Charlie Robison gets his well-deserved platinum single, he'll have accrued a back catalog full of timeless, should've-been hits like these. If Beautiful Day had come out in the mid-1970s, the Bandera, Texas, native would be hailed as an influence on Lynyrd Skynyrd with the "Tuesday's Gone" sway of his "Reconsider." Instead, this is Robison's first album in five years, a period in which his life turned into a country song. In this post-Dixie Chicks divorce outing, Robison can't help but turn his estimable songwriting talent on his broken relationship (the disarmingly jaunty title cut) and subsequent painful soul-searching ("Yellow Blues"). He does so without wallowing in autobiography, and such is the disc's sunny promise, delivered in the darkness by his rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Racing in the Street." It's a sweet victory for Robison, once again challenging his brother Bruce in the Texas songwriters sweepstakes.