Country music star Bob Corbin and his wife, Edana, leave a legacy through their writings

Bob and Edana Corbin will live on through their words.

Bob Corbin, 74, a songwriter and singer, and Edana Corbin, 77, an author, who died days apart, have left a legacy through what they’ve written.

People will still be able to sing the songs he wrote for the country band Corbin/Hanner and read the books she wrote under the pen name of EB Corbin. The “Roxanne Boudreaux Trilogy” is a mystery-suspense-romance novel. Her husband helped edit the manuscript. A new series titled, “Death With Dignity” follows Sam Turner and Henry Samuels as they travel around the U.S. to return the money Turner’s father stole from many in his notorious con game. Other books include “Too Many Secrets,” “Too Many Lies” and “Too Many Suspects.”

When asked about losing his parents in the same week, their son, Cole Corbin, 49, said his parents had a certain kind of poetic symmetry.

“They had been partners all their lives,” he said. “I think it would have been hard for one of them to live without the other.”

Since they moved to Ecuador in 2015 when they retired, he said his dad would help his Edana edit her books. It gave him a focus since he could no longer play the guitar like he used to because of his health. During the years of the band performing, it was Edana Corbin, an accountant, who ran the business side, Cole said.

“It was always the two of them against the world,” said Cole, who lives outside of New York City. “I know my dad was always extremely grateful to all of the fans throughout the years. That support I saw myself.

”He loved how the music moved people and brightened their day.”

The music story took off when Edana Corbin was doing an interview with country music hall-of-famer Mel Tillis for a country music magazine she was writing for in the 1970s. She shared with Tillis a tape of tunes her husband had written.

That launched the careers of Bob Corbin and Dave Hanner, lifelong friends who grew up in Ford City. The two, who have known each other since seventh grade, would go on to stellar music careers — not just in Western Pennsylvania but across the U.S.

Tillis gave the artists their first major break, recording about a dozen of their songs, including “In the Middle of the Night,” on which Bob Corbin and Hanner sang background; “Time Has Treated You Well”; and the Top 10 “Blind in Love.”

The Corbins shared a remarkable love story, according to their daughter Jessica Corbin, 52, who lives near Allentown. They were always there for each other.

“There was no time when they were apart,” Jessica said. “My dad loved the spotlight, and my mother loved working the spotlight for my dad. She literally worked the lighting for the band. They were always ‘all-in’ for each other.”

Her mother was always supportive of the band, Jessica said. Corbin and Hanner, both 1967 graduates of Ford City High School, penned hit songs for several major country artists, selling a combined 20 million-plus copies.

Wrote songs for country legends

They wrote songs for Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys, Don Williams, Anne Murray and Lee Ann Womack.

Hank Williams Jr.’s version of the song “Dinosaur” brought an early gold record. The Marshall Tucker Band, Glen Campbell, Burl Ives, Michael Martin Murphy and Bill Miller were among other artists recording the material of Corbin and Hanner. They toured with The Oaks, Tillis and Don Williams.

It all began at their first paying gig came in the mid-1960s at a Kittanning YMCA dance when they were in junior high. They started as the group Gravel in January 1970 at the Fox Cafe in Shadyside. Their name changed to the Corbin/Hanner Band in 1977.

Corbin and Hanner’s own nine albums include releases on Mercury/Polygram — “Black and White Photograph” and “Just Another Hill” — and other national labels.

Hits of their own

Three of their own singles reached the Top 30 on the national country charts, and “Work Song,” a nod to the blue-collar small town ethic of Ford City.

Enroute to gold and platinum awards, eight of their songs became Top 5 singles on the country charts, with the majority going to No. 1. They eventually earning a deal with CBS Records.

The singer-songwriters opened shows for Hall of Famer Kenny Rogers and wrote the song, “She Rides Wild Horses,” that became the title track for Rogers comeback album in 1999.

“He was very gracious, thanking me for the opportunity to do the song,” Bob Corbin said of the time he met Rogers, after he recorded “Wild Horses,” at a performance at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. “He said he hoped he did it justice. I was the one who was thankful.”

Hanner said he is thankful for Bob and Edana Corbin. When he heard of their passing he felt dazed.

“I have an empty spot inside,” said Hanner, of Bradford Woods. “It is just crazy. I have known him since seventh grade and her since I was 20.”

Hanner said Edana Corbin was such a big part of the band. She helped get an agent and, of course, the Tillis story was huge.

“Bob and Edana, the two of them, they were a team.”

He said he talked to Bob last week. A favorite memory was when Bob would tell him how impressed he was with something he had done.

“Maybe about a musical thing; or one time, he told me how he and Edana often talked about what a good dad they thought I was,” Hanner said. “In a relationship where it wasn’t necessary to say much, it was so kind of him to make the effort to actually tell me those things. Now that he is gone, I just feel like this piece of my being is missing.”

Their final concert was in 2014 at Jergel’s Rhythm Grille in Warrendale.

Rick Jergel, general manager of Jergel’s Rhythm Grille, said at the time: “I am flattered they chose our venue for their final shows. Anytime Corbin/Hanner performs is a special night. They definitely will leave a void in the music world and will be missed.”

Bob Corbin had said “you can always wish you were more successful, or that we had gotten big, but, in the end, everything worked out OK.”

“We’ve been fortunate to have always been able to write songs and sing them and have people respond, for the most part, favorably,” Corbin said. “You can’t ask for more than that. We told people’s stories in our songs.”

One of those songs saved a life. A truck driver was calling in from the road. His wife told him she had met someone else and, by the time he made it home, she would be gone. Devastated, he decided to drive his vehicle into a ravine a few miles down the road. Alabama’s version of Corbin-Hanner’s “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” came on the radio.

The message made the man rethink his idea of suicide.

A few years later, the trucker approached the writer of that song, Corbin, and told him the story.

Corbin had said he was stunned.

“When you hear something like that, it makes you realize what a powerful thing music can be,” he said. “It amazed me.”

Retired Pittsburgh disc jockey Jimmy Roach said a word to describe Corbin is “authentic.”

“The Corbin/Hanner Band and their music was so honest, so real, so good,” Roach said. “In tribute to Bob, spend some time on YouTube and relive the gifts that have been left for us.”

The family is planning a private service at a future date

Donations can be made to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which helps music industry workers in need.