Charley Pride, the son of a Mississippi stock trader who later became the first black country music superstar, died Saturday at the Dallas hospice. He was 86 years old.
His publicist Jeremy Westby said the cause was complications from Covid-19.
A bridge builder who broke into country music amid the race riots of the 1960s, Mr. Pride was one of the most successful singers to ever work in this largely white genre. From 1966 to 1987 he placed 52 records in the country’s top 10.
Singles like “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin ‘” and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone” – among his 29 recordings, which are number 1 on the country charts – showed a rural mix of traditional instrumentation and more uptown arrangements.
At RCA, the label for which he recorded for three decades, Mr. Pride was the second biggest record seller after Elvis Presley. It was created as an inspiration for generations of performers, from Black Country hitmaker Darius Rucker, who used to be part of the rock band Hootie and the Blowfish, to white heirs like Alan Jackson, who had a version of “Kiss an Angel” on his 1999 album Album “Under the Influence”.
The reasons for calling Mr. Pride were undeniable: a resonant baritone voice, an innate ear for melodies, an affable demeanor and a camera-friendly appearance.
However, in interviews, he sometimes downplayed the role his blackness played in his career, especially when faced with racial prejudice.
“People thought it was going to be difficult, but it wasn’t,” Mr. Pride said in a 1997 interview with Nashville about what it was like as a black man to break into the country music scene in the 1960s. “I never got any flak or anything. And that was amazing to most reporters, especially since I was at the height of sit-ins and bus boycotts. “
Mr. Pride’s 1994 autobiography paints a more intense picture of his early years in the music business. “The racist element was always there,” he wrote (with Jim Henderson) in Pride: The Charley Pride Story.
For example, RCA Records once sent promotional copies of its earliest recordings to journalists and disc jockeys across the country without including the standard promotional photos, intentionally or intentionally hiding its race. The label attributed these first “Country” singles to Charley Pride, as if to underscore its affinity for rural white culture.
As his racial identity became apparent, Mr. Pride wrote, he often struggled to secure bookings and sometimes endured the outrage when southern disc jockeys call him “good nigra” on the air. In order to relieve tension during his early concerts, he carefree referred to his “permanent tan”.
Despite his best efforts to please his white audiences, Mr. Pride wasn’t country music’s answer to Jackie Robinson, as some have observed. Notwithstanding his generosity of spirit, his individual success never opened doors for black performers in country music the way Robinsons did to other black players in Major League Baseball.
In fact, it was more than four decades before Mr. Pride became the second African American after his country music debut to achieve a # 1 country hit with the single “Don’t Think I Don”. t think about it. “
Even so, the dignity and grace with which Mr. Pride and his 63-year-old wife Rozene Pride paved their way through the white world of country music became a beacon for his fans and colleagues.
“No person of color has ever done what they did,” Rucker said in Charley Pride: I’m Just Me, a 2019 American Masters documentary on PBS.
Mr Pride himself was more selfless in assessing its impact, but expressed satisfaction in having a role in promoting integration. “We are not yet color-blind,” he wrote in his autobiography, “but we are a few steps forward and I like to think that I have contributed to this process.”
Charley Frank Pride was born on March 18, 1934 on a 40 acre farm in Sledge, Miss., The fourth of eleven children to Tessie (Stewart) Pride and Mack Pride Sr. His father had planned to call him Charl, but a typo on his birth certificate officially left the first name Charley.
With his cotton-picking income, Charley bought his first guitar, a $ 10 Sears-Roebuck, when he was 14. His father, a strict man, frowned at what he thought was the inconvenience of the blues that were prevalent in Mississippi at the time, and instead preferred the music of the Grand Ole Opry, and with it his son’s early devotion to Hank Williams and Roy Acuff.
Instead of choosing to become a singer, Mr. Pride first opted for a career in baseball in the Negro American League and left home at the age of 16 to work for the Memphis Red Sox and Boise Yankees, an Idaho, to advertise subsidiary of the New York Yankees.
He married Ebby Rozene Cohran in 1956 and was drafted into the Army, disrupting his baseball career, which had already suffered a setback when he was injured while pitching for Boise.
After his release from service two years later, Mr. Pride returned to baseball in the early 1960s and accepted invitations to try out with the California Angels and New York Mets, but was ultimately not offered a contract by either franchise.
At this point the Prides had relocated to Helena, Mont., Where Mr. Pride played both semi pro baseball and music at social events for the local smelter where he worked.
He and his wife started a family in Helena, where Mr. Pride attracted the attention of country singers Red Sovine and Red Foley. They eventually persuaded him to give country music a try.
The demo recordings that Mr. Pride made in Nashville in the early 1960s did not initially arouse interest. It was not until the producer Jack “Cowboy” Clement was overseeing one of his sessions in the summer of 1965 that Chet Atkins finally took notice and offered Mr. Pride a record deal.
“Just Between You and Me,” the third single from Mr. Pride’s sessions with Mr. Clement, reached the country’s top 10 in 1967 and opened a string of hits that continued into the late 1980s.
In 1971, the year Kiss an Angel Good Mornin ‘was released – his eighth # 1 country single and only Top 40 pop hit – Mr. Pride was named both Male Singer of the Year and County Music Association named Entertainer of the Year. That year he also won two Grammy Awards in the “Holy” and “Gospel Performance” categories for a single with “Let Me Live” on one side and “Did You Think to Pray” on the other.
In 1972 Mr. Pride was again named Male Singer of the Year by the Country Music Association and won another Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for the album “Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs”.
He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1993. The only African American who preceded him in the show’s cast was harmonica player DeFord Bailey, a star on the Opry from 1927 to 1941. (In 2012, Mr. Rucker lived up to the third black performer to ever join the Opry.)
Mr. Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
In 2008, he and his brother Mack, along with 28 other surviving Negro League baseball veterans, were honored to be honors of the current 30 teams in Major League Baseball in recognition of their accomplishments and the greater legacy of the Negro leagues. Mr. Pride was selected by the Texas Rangers, whose franchise he owned as a partner and for whom he sang the national anthem before the fifth game of the 2010 World Series. Mack Pride died in 2018.
A former team member, former President George W. Bush, said in a statement, referring to former first lady Laura Bush, “Charley Pride was a good gentleman with a great voice. Laura and I love his music and the spirit behind it. “
Mr. Pride received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2017 and was honored with the Country Music Association’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award last month. His last public appearance was on November 11th at the CMA Awards in Nashville, where he sang “Kiss an Angel” with Jimmie Allen, one of several contemporary black country hitmakers, to cite Mr. Pride as an influence.
The event organizers said at the time that they “follow all protocols” to deal with Covid-19, but some in attendance did not wear masks. Mr. Pride’s publicist said he tested negative for the coronavirus twice after returning. He was then hospitalized for double pneumonia, which was classified as Covid-19
In addition to being an entertainer, Mr. Pride was a successful businessman who invested in real estate in the Dallas area and started Chardon, an artist booking and management company that helped boost the careers of country singers like Janie Fricke and Neal McCoy start.
He was also a partner of Pi-Gem, a song publisher owned by producer Tom Collins.
In addition to his wife, his sons Carlton and Dion, both musicians, survive. one daughter, Angela Rozene Pride; two brothers, Stephen and Harmon; two sisters, Catherine Sanders and Maxine Pride; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Early in his career, as soon as they realized he was Black, many of his fans asked Mr. Pride why his vocal phrasing was less homely – that is, more button-down and less country – than that of Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, and some of the other white singers who inspired him.
“I have a lot of questions that have been asked: ‘Charley, how did you get into country music and why don’t you sound the way you should sound?’ He explained to his audience during a 1968 concert recording released by RCA.
“It’s a little unique, I’ll admit,” he continued. “But I’ve been singing country music since I was about 5 years old. That’s why I sound like I sound like I am. “
Bryan Pietsch contributed to the reporting.
