Another Dixie Chicklet -Emily Gives Birth
Dixie Chick Emily Robison has a brand new hatchling.
The dark-haired, guitar-slinging, banjo-picking Chick and her country music hubby, Charlie, welcomed their first child Monday night.
Charles Augustus Robison made his debut at 10:06 p.m. at a San Antonio hospital, weighing in at 8 pounds, 13 ounces and measuring 21 inches. (Little Chuckie’s middle name was inspired by Robert Duvall (news)’s character “Gus” in the Lonesome Dove series, Charlie Robison (news)’s publicist informs us.)
“Both mother and son are healthy and resting at home in San Antonio,” the Chicks’ publicist says.
“We’re so happy to have a healthy baby boy and feel very blessed,” says Charlie Robison. “I’ll probably hold off at least a couple of days before teaching him how to ride a horse.”
Emily Robison, 30, becomes the second Chick with a Chicklet. Lead singer Natalie Maines (news) Pasdar gave birth to a son named Jackson in March 2001.
The then-Emily Erwin met Robison–a gritty honky-tonkin’ rocker whose albums include Life of the Party and Step Right Up–following a Dixie Chick gig in their native Texas. They were betrothed two months later (“It was one of those ‘we just knew’ things,” Emily once said) and swapped vows in May 1999.
“We’re happy in our marriages,” Emily Robison tells Jules Asner on E!’s upcoming Dixie Chicks Revealed (premiering Wednesday at 10 p.m.). “We’re all very much nesting right now.”
Robison’s preoccupation with nesting kept the Chicks from attending last Wednesday’s Country Music Association Awards ceremony in Nashville. With Robison practically bursting and unable to leave her ranch, bandmates Pasdar and Martie Maguire (Emily’s older sister) decided to skip the shindig as a show of solidarity. The Chicks wound up winning their fourth Vocal Group of the Year trophy in absentia.
With the Robisons embracing their new parenthood, both Charlie Robison and the Chicks will remain off the road for a few months. The Dixie Chicks next scheduled tour date is February 8 in Salt Lake City.
Of course, long hiatuses are nothing new for the Dixie Chicks. They originally took a break to focus on their family lives about three years ago. Last year, the threesome sued Sony Music, accusing the label of swindling them out of millions of dollars and holding up their third studio album. The band and Sony reached a settlement in June (reportedly for $20 million), paving the way for this summer’s release of Home.
Their bluegrass-tinged album topped the charts upon its release in August (the Chicks are the only country band to debut at number one on the pop charts, and they’ve done it with two consecutive albums) Home has remained a Top 10 fixture, selling more than 3 million copies on the strength of singles “Long Gone” and a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”
All told, the Texas trio has moved nearly 20 million copies of their first two albums, 1998’s Wide Open Spaces and 1999’s Fly, winning multiple Grammys (news – web sites) for each.
By Marcus Errico