Pride, Charley
1934-2020 · Contribution: 1966-1987
Country music's first African American superstar; a warm-baritoned singer who broke the genre's racial barriers, scored dozens of number-one hits for RCA, and became the first Black artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as a performer.
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
Became country music's first Black superstar and, in 1967, the first Black performer at the Grand Ole Opry since DeFord Bailey; he was the first Black artist to have a number-one country record and the first artist of any race to win the Country Music Association's Male Vocalist award two years running (1971 and 1972), taking CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1971. Across his peak years he amassed 52 top-ten country hits, roughly 30 of them number ones, and for a stretch in the early 1970s was RCA's best-selling artist. He joined the Grand Ole Opry as a member in 1993, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 and the CMA's Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, and in 2025 his signature 'Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'' was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
Life & background
Born on March 18, 1934, in Sledge, Mississippi, the fourth of eleven children of Delta sharecroppers, Charley Frank Pride grew up laboring in cotton fields and listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the family's Philco radio. He first pursued baseball, pitching in the Negro American League for the Memphis Red Sox and in the minor leagues, and it was while playing and working in Montana that his singing in local bars drew notice. Encouraged to try Nashville, he signed with RCA in 1965 with the backing of guitarist-executive Chet Atkins and producer Jack Clement, who initially released his records and withheld publicity photos so audiences would hear the voice before learning he was Black; his 1967 breakthrough 'Just Between You and Me' launched a long run of 'countrypolitan' crossover hits such as 'Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'.' Facing all-white crowds early on, he often disarmed them with a joke about his 'permanent tan,' and his talent quickly won loyal fans. He became a Grand Ole Opry member in 1993 and entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000, remaining a top touring act for decades until his death on December 12, 2020, in Dallas, of COVID-19 complications, weeks after accepting the CMA's Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sources
- Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum; Britannica (Charley Pride); PBS (Ken Burns' Country Music / American Masters)
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