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Charley Frank Pride (born March 18, 1938) is among the most successful country music singers of all time. During his career, he has had 36 number-one hits.
Early Life & Career As a Baseball PlayerPride was born in Sledge Mississippi, one of eleven children of poor sharecroppers. His father named him "Charl Frank Pride", but because of a typing error on his birth certificate, he was legally born as Charley Frank Pride.[1]As a teenager, he began to play the guitar.
Pride appeared to be on his way to a career in baseball but the U.S. Army had other plans for him. After serving two years in the military he tried to return to baseball. Though hindered by an injury to his throwing arm, Pride briefly played for the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League (a Cincinnati Reds farm club) in 1960 and had tryouts with the New York Mets and California Angels organizations. When it became apparent that he was not destined for greatness on the baseball diamond, Pride turned his attentions to pursuing a music career. Charley Pride's lifelong passion for baseball continues: he has an annual tradition of joining the Texas Rangers for workouts during Spring Training. A big Rangers fan, (Dallas has been his home for many years), Pride is often seen at games. Rise to Music FameAfter knowing he would not be able to make a career in baseball, Pride decided to turn his attention to country music. When playing baseball, he had heard much encouragement to join the music business from country music singers like Red Sovine and Red Foley. Soon he was working towards this career. In 1958, in Memphis, Tennessee, Pride visited Sun Studios and recorded some songs.[citation needed] One song has survived on tape, and has been released in England as part of an LP-box. The song is a slow stroll in walking tempo called "Walkin (the Stroll)"
In 1966, he released his first single with RCA, "Snakes Crawl at Night". The song is about a man who shoots his wife because she was cheating on him with another man. When the song was promoted to radio stations, the label called Pride "Country Charley Pride". They purposely failed to send a photograph of Pride because they wanted disc jockeys and station managers to think that he was white.[citation needed] It is important to remember that during this time, country music was a white domain. Soon after the release of "Snakes Crawl at Night", Pride released another single called "Before I Met You". Soon after, Pride's third single, "Just Between You and Me", was released. This song was what finally brought Pride success on the Country charts. The song reached #9. Height of His CareerThe success of "Just Between You and Me" was enormous. He won a Grammy Award for the song the next year. However, success didn't come as easily as it might have for a white country singer.[citation needed] He was still considered by many in the music business as a "Black Performer" and, like other blacks during that time, things didn't come easily for Charley Pride.[citation needed] In 1967, he became the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since harmonica player DeFord Bailey in 1925. He also appeared that year on the American Broadcasting Company's The Lawrence Welk Show. Between 1969 and 1971, he had six number-one hits. These hits were "All I Have to Offer You Is Me", "I'm So Afraid of Losing You Again", "I Can't Believe That You've Stopped Lovin' Me" and "I'd Rather Love You". All of these singles reached the lower region of the Pop charts, showing the Country/Pop crossover sound that was reaching Country music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, known as "Countrypolitan". Pride's next #1 single came in 1971. It was called "Kiss An Angel Good Morning", and it was a million-selling crossover single and helped Pride land the Country Music Association awards as Entertainer of the Year (1971) and Top Male Vocalist in 1971, as well as in 1972. "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" is one of his best-known songs and also one of his signature tunes. The song was also his first that reached the pop charts, reaching #21, and into the Top Ten of the Adult Contemporary charts. During the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Charley Pride continued to rack up country music hits. Other Pride standards of the '70s and '80s include "Is Anybody Goin' To San Antone?", "Mississippi Cotton Picking Delta Town," "Someone Loves You, Honey," "When I Stop Leaving, I'll Be Gone," "Burgers and Fries", "I Don't Think She's In Love Anymore", "Roll On Mississippi" and "You're So Good When You're Bad." Like many other country performers, he has paid tribute to Hank Williams with top-sellers of Williams' classics "Kaw-Liga" "Honky Tonk Blues" and "You Win Again". Pride has garnered more than 36 Number 1 country singles and sold over 70 million records (singles, albums, compilation inclusions). He stayed with RCA Records until 1986. At that point, he grew angry over the fact that the record company began to promote newer artists and not older artists that had been with the record company for a long time (such as Pride).[citation needed] Chronology
Famous Quote
Trivia
Selected Hit Singles
Sources
See alsoReferences
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