Good Morning POU!
Charley Frank Pride (born March 18, 1938) is an American country music singer, musician/guitarist, recording artist, performer, and business owner. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. In total, he has garnered 39 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.
Pride is one of the few African-American country musicians to have had considerable success in the country music industry and one of only three African-Americans to have been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi, one of eleven children of poor sharecroppers. His father intended to name him Charl Frank Pride, but owing to a clerical error on his birth certificate, his legal name is Charley Frank Pride.
In his early teens, Pride began playing guitar. Though he also loved music, one of Pride’s lifelong dreams was to become a professional baseball player. In 1952, he pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. He pitched well, and in 1953, he signed a contract with the Boise Yankees, the Class C farm team of the New York Yankees. During that season, an injury caused him to lose the “mustard” on his fastball, and he was sent to the Yankees’ Class D team in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Later that season, while in the Negro leagues with the Louisville Clippers, he and another player (Jesse Mitchell) were traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a team bus. “Jesse and I may have the distinction of being the only players in history to be traded for a used motor vehicle,” Pride mused in his 1994 autobiography.
He pitched for several other minor league teams, his hopes of making it to the big leagues still alive, but the Army derailed this. 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 farm club of the Cincinnati Reds) in 1960, and had tryouts with the California Angels (1961) and the New York Mets (1962) organizations, but was not picked up by either team. He worked construction in Helena, Montana during this time. When it became apparent that he was not destined for greatness on the baseball diamond, Pride pursued a music career.
On June 5, 2008, Pride and his brother Mack “The Knife” Pride and 28 other living former Negro league players were “drafted” by each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams in a recognition of the on-field achievements and historical relevance of 30 mostly-forgotten Negro-league stars. Pride was picked by the Texas Rangers, with whom he has had a long affiliation, and the Colorado Rockies took his brother.
In 1958, in Memphis, Tennessee, Pride visited Sun Studios and recorded some songs. One song has survived on tape, and was released in the United Kingdom as part of a box set. The song is a slow stroll in walking tempo called “Walkin’ (the Stroll).”
Nashville manager and agent Jack D. Johnson signed Pride and landed him a contract with a record label, and he caught the ear of record producer Chet Atkins. Atkins was the longtime producer at RCA Victor who had made stars out of country singers such as Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis and others. Pride was signed to RCA in 1965. In January 1966, he released his first single with RCA, “The Snakes Crawl at Night”, which did not chart. On the records of this song submitted to radio stations for airplay, the singer was listed as “Country Charley Pride”. At this time, country music was a white medium. Jack made sure that there were no pictures of Pride distributed for the first two years of his career, in order to avoid the effects of Jim Crowism.
Soon after the release of “The Snakes Crawl at Night”, Pride released another single called “Before I Met You”, which also did not chart. Soon after, Pride’s third single, “Just Between You and Me”, was released. This song was the one that finally brought Pride success on the Country charts. The song reached No. 9 on US Country chart.
The success of “Just Between You and Me” was enormous. He won a Grammy Award for the song the next year.
In 1967, he became the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since harmonica player DeFord Bailey. Bailey was a regular cast member of the Opry from 1925 through 1941, and made a final appearance in 1974. Pride also appeared in 1967 on the American Broadcasting Company’s “The Lawrence Welk Show”.
Between 1969 and 1971, Pride had eight single records that simultaneously reached No. 1 on the US Country Hit Parade and also charted on the Billboard Hot 100: “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)”, “(I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again”, “I Can’t Believe That You’ve Stopped Loving Me”, “I’d Rather Love You”, “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone”, “Wonder Could I Live There Anymore?”, “I’m Just Me”, and “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'”. The pop success of these songs reflected the country/pop crossover sound that was reaching Country music in the 1960s and early 1970s, known as “Countrypolitan”. In 1969 his compilation album, The Best of Charley Pride sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
Pride sang the Paul Newman directed film Sometimes a Great Notion’s main soundtrack song “All His Children” in 1970. The film starred Newman and Henry Fonda and received two Oscar nominations in 1972, one being for the song that Pride sang.
In 1971, he would release what would become his biggest hit “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'”, a million-selling crossover single that helped Pride land the Country Music Association’s prestigious Entertainer of the Year award, as well as Top Male Vocalist.[18] He won CMA’s Top Male Vocalist award again in 1972.
“Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'” became Pride’s signature tune. Besides being a five-week country No. 1 in late 1971 and early 1972, the song was also his only pop Top 40 hit, hitting No. 21, and reaching the Top Ten of the Adult Contemporary charts as well.
Pride met his wife Rozene while he was playing baseball in the southern states. They married in 1956 and have two sons, Kraig and Dion, and a daughter, Angela. They currently reside in Dallas, Texas.