They talk about cardiomyopathy in the article. Isn’t that many times caused by alcoholism?
He’s actually planned an upcoming casino tour. You’d think you only do that if you knew you were completely out of the woods.
Oh, dear. He’s always been one of my favorites.
Still remember when I was three, romping around my Grandparents’ living room singing ‘‘Diggin’ up Bones.’’
Alcohol is one cause. A far more common cause is plain old coronary artery disease (i.e. previous heart attacks leaving the heart a scarred, inefficient mess). But the most common is what’s called “idiopathic”, i.e. of unknown cause.
That said, there are LOTS of possible causes.
Threads merged.
Very possible in his case. Remember the drunk-naked driving incident last summer? And it wasn’t his first arrest for bizarre public intoxication.
No idea if it’s contributing, but he also has Lyme Disease.
I’ve never liked his music, but I liked his appearance in a King of the Hill episode. He made himself look like a total jerk in that episode, stealing Peggy’s song. When Hank later saves him from drowning, he performs a song saying that HE saved HANK’s life.
Saw his picture on a billboard yesterday advertising that tour.
I had initially heard that he had endocarditis, which is usually caused by IV drug use, but if it was viral, AFAIK that’s something you just get and isn’t influenced by anything else.
Nowadays, it’s also a very common reason for heart transplants. Hope it doesn’t come down to that.
I really like his voice & enjoy a lot of his songs.
hope he gets better.
Generally, according to an article about his illness, viral cardiomyopathy self-resolves. It also says that it is not that uncommon, whatever that means.
But excessive amounts of alcohol may weaken the immune system.
I suspect he is a dear man with a few serious emotional vulnerabilities. Such a mixed bag that is! Makes for good art while it chips away at the artist.
I hope it’s not to late for him to heed his miserable wake-up calls.
I always though a lot of his music was a little too sentimental (well it is mainstream country), but he has one of the great voices in country.
yes, an excellent voice, and I think the unabashed sentiment is a strength.
sorry to hear about the stroke. 
I heard about the stroke last night, and was about floored when they mentioned he was 54. 54!! He looks about 70 – but I guess it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.
He was very cute as recently as the 90s and looked younger than his age. I guess he just looked so cleancut that I was really surprised to learn what a rowdy youth he was and about his demons in recent years.
On a purely self serving note I’ll mention that I mainly started following his career for genealogical reasons. He’s a distant cousin (we share a g-g-g-g-grandfather, so that makes us about 5th cousins if I’m not mistaken) but, interestingly, we both have much closer cousins with the same unusual given names [Lunsford and Robard] that have been in that lineage since the 17th century.
ME TOO! I thought it was about dinosaurs. I loved that song.
Very sad about Randy Travis. I’ve always loved his voice.