Jeff Carson, a country music musician who had many singles in the mid-to-late 1990s before refocusing his career on local law enforcement, has died. He was 58 years old at the time.
Jeff Carson attends 30th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on May 10, 1995 at the Universal Ampitheater in Universal City, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Carson died suffered a heart attack, according to a press announcement on his official website.
Carson grew up singing in church in Oklahoma before moving to Branson, Missouri, and eventually Nashville to pursue his country music dreams.
Carson signed a recording contract and released his first single, “Yeah Buddy,” there in 1995.
According to his biography, this was followed by “Not On Your Love,” which reached number one. “The Car,” Carson’s next single, was a top-five smash, peaking at number two, and earned him his first Academy of Country Music award for Video of the Year.
Carson had 14 Billboard charting singles during the course of his career.
Carson left music in 2009 to join the Franklin Police Department in Williamson County, Tennessee, as a police officer. He remained a member of the force until his death.
In 2019, he returned to music for a brief while to recut and release “God Save The World,” a previously recorded song.
Carson’s police colleagues sang that song in his honor, adding he “changed everyone he encountered, all of us, for the better!”
The department wrote, “May his message live on: God Save The World.”
Carson was chosen officer of the month in October 2016 after catching a suspected shoplifter in a Target parking lot.
During the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the department released a video of Carson wearing a “for the public” shirt to encourage others to observe the county’s masking policy at the time.
Carson leaves behind a wife and a son.
This story originated in Detroit.