Nineties country star Jeff Carson has passed away.
The Hollywood Reporter reports:
Country singer Jeff Carson, who topped the charts with 1995 single “Not on Your Love,” has died. He was 58.
Carson died of a heart attack at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tennessee, publicist Jeremy Westby told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday.
Born Jeffrey Lee Herndon in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Dec. 16, 1963, he got his start singing in church. He later moved to Branson, Missouri, where he wrote songs and performed locally, before heading to Nashville.
Carson landed a deal with Curb Records in 1995, with his single “Yeah Buddy” released soon thereafter and giving the performer his first song on the charts. Next up that same year was “Not on Your Love,” which hit No. 1.
Subsequent single “The Car” also cracked the top five and earned Carson the Academy of Country Music Award for video of the year.
After a career that included three studio albums, in addition to 14 singles on the Billboard charts, Carson stepped away from the music business in 2009 and started a new career as a law enforcement officer. He remained a member of the Franklin Police Department in Williamson County, Tennessee, until his death.
Carson had recently returned to recording music after a long hiatus. He will be featured soon in our ongoing retrospective of nineties No. 1 country singles.
Our best wishes go out to his family, friends, and fans.
Not On Your Love, The Car and Real Life. Great songs that I love. Real Life came out around the time I was going through a breakup and my mother was dying. Jeff Carson, 58 years old. Same as me. My sincere condolences to those that knew him.
This is very sad for me to see, and I was shocked to see this news the other night. I had actually been watching and enjoying the various cover performances that Jeff had been sharing on his channel on YouTube just recently, and I was very impressed by how great he still sounded and how he could sing almost anything and sound great.
Jeff Carson provided some of the soundtrack to my childhood in the mid 90’s with “Not On Your Love” and “Holdin’ On To Something” being the ones I remember hearing the most on the radio back then. “Not On Your Love” was and is still one of my favorite ballads from that time, and it even wound up on a couple of the tapes I recorded back then. As for “Holdin’ On To Something,” that one seemed to come on just about every time we found a country station while my step dad was driving us up to Maine in the Summer of 1996, and it was always a fun song to hear. I had that one recorded on a couple of tapes, as well.
“The Car” is one I didn’t really hear as much on the radio, but it’s one I really came to love as soon as I got his debut album somewhere in the early 00’s. It’s yet another one of those tearjerkers that I still cannot get through without my eyes getting watery.
When Jeff suddenly made a comeback around late 2001 with “Real Life,” that was one of my favorite current songs at the time. I was excited to hear from him again, and I was really rooting for him because I had remembered and still enjoyed his earlier singles. While he unfortunately struggled at radio after that, I always admired and respected him for eventually seeing the writing on the wall and going after his other dream profession, which was being a police officer. And of course, as already mentioned, I was happy to see him making a return to music in the more recent years.
What makes this especially sad for me too, is that Jeff, from what I’ve seen and heard, seemed like a genuinely nice guy. My thoughts and condolences go to his family and friends.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: It’s way too soon for us to be losing this many 90’s country singers! :(
Another ship leaving the country music harbour.