Charley Pride, Pioneering Black Country Singer, Dead at 86

[IceWizard]

Charley Pride, Pioneering Black
Country Singer, Dead at 86


Country Music Hall of Fame member
died in Texas from complications
related to Covid-19


Charley Pride
the pioneering black country singer known
for such hits as “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'”
and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” has
died in Dallas, Texas, from complications
related to Covid-19, according to his publicist.
He was 86.


Born in Sledge, Mississippi, in 1934, Pride
picked cotton, played baseball in the
Negro leagues, served in the U.S. Army, and
worked in a smelting plant in Montana
before moving to Nashville and becoming
country music’s first black superstar.
He scored 52 Top 10 country hits, including
29 Number Ones, and was the first
African-American performer to appear on
the Grand Ole Opry stage since Deford Bailey
made his debut in the 1920s. Pride became
an Opry member in 1993. In 2000, he was
inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

After leaving the Army, Pride landed in
Helena, Montana, where he continued
to play baseball (Jackie Robinson was
an early hero) and took a job in a smelting
plant. He also began singing in public,
where he caught the ear of a local DJ
who arranged for Pride to sing for country
stars Red Sovine and Red Foley. The pair
convinced him to move to Nashville and,
in 1964, he signed a management deal
with longtime manager Jack D. Johnson.
The following year, he had his first Nashville
recording session and, a month later, signed
with the label RCA.

Pride’s debut single, “The Snakes Crawl at Night,"
failed to chart, but his debut album, Country, reached
the Top 20. His 1967 album The Pride of Country
Music went on to hit Number One and, that same
year, he became the first African-American solo
singer to appear on the Opry. On April 29th, he made
his national TV debut, appearing on Lawrence Welk’s
Saturday-night ABC music series.

A lifelong disciple of Hank Williams, Pride’s debut on
The Lawrence Welk Show presented his vibrant take
on Williams’ 1949 hit “Lovesick Blues.” During a later
appearance, Pride sang Lead Belly’s oft-covered folk
tune “Cotton Fields,” a song that reminded him of his
hard upbringing as a sharecropper’s son. “[It] reminds
me of what I don’t ever go back to doing because it
hurt my fingers and my back and my knees,” Pride said.

Pride’s appearance on a variety show popular with a
white audience was no small achievement, especially
given RCA’s early penchant for obscuring Pride’s race.
When Pride’s singles were sent to DJs and press, they
arrived without the usual artist publicity photo.
By 1969, Pride was on a hot streak, propelled by his
Top Three cover of Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga.” He
notched his first Number One single with “
"All I Have to Offer You (Is Me),” following by another
chart-topper, “(I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again.”
The following year Pride released one of his
signatures songs, “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone.”
It too hit Number One. His other signature,
"Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” arrived in 1971 and
gave him a bona fide crossover smash, reaching
Number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The hits continued well into the early Eighties, with
singles like 1974’s “Then Who Am I,” 1977’s
“More to Me,” 1980’s “Honky Tonk Blues” and
"You Win Again” (two more Hank Williams covers),
and 1983’s sultry “Night Games,” which would be
his last Number One.

Despite being such an important black figure in
country music, Pride never felt defined by his race,
even when peppered with questions about it by
the press. “I never see anything but the staunch

American Charley Pride,” he told NPR in a 2017
interview. “They says, ‘Charley, how did it feel to
be the Jackie Robinson of country music? How
did it feel to be the first colored country singer?
How did it feel to be the first Negro country singer?
How did it feel to be the first black country singer?’
It don’t bother me, other than I have to explain
it to you how I maneuvered around all these
obstacles to get to where I am today…. I’ve got a
great-grandson and [grand] daughter and they
gonna be asking them that too if we don’t get
out of this crutch we’ve been in all these years…
this ‘them’ and ‘us.'”

In a 2019 documentary about his life and career,
Pride did recall one particularly tense concert,
however. It was in Big Springs, Texas, on
April 4, 1968 — the date of Martin Luther King’s
assassination. “I got onstage, nobody said nothin’,”
Pride said. “They applauded, I got a standing
ovation. I didn’t say nothin’ about nothin’ pertaining
to what had happened. But it was hanging there,
what had happened and me the only one there
with these pigmentations.
You don’t forget nothin’ like that.”

Dolly Parton, who sang with Pride on the duet
"God’s Coloring Book,” remembered the country
star in a tweet on Saturday. “I’m so heartbroken
that one of my dearest and oldest friends,
Charley Pride, has passed away,” she wrote.
"It’s even worse to know that he passed away
from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus.
Charley, we will always love you.”

Just last month, Pride, a three-time Grammy
winner, was honored by the Country Music
Association with the Willie Nelson Lifetime
Achievement Award. He performed on the
telecast with country singer Jimmie Allen,
recreating “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.”

It would be Pride’s final performance.




The last few years, we have seen so many
Going home to Glory.
Another Great One is heading home.

R.I.P.   

You will be missed, Mr. Pride

[Levi517]

RIP Charlie Pride. I remember some of his songs breaking through to me back in the day when I was mainly listening to the Stones or the Doors. Great music, great persons transcend.