Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and professional baseball player. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, wh he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley.
During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. He won the tertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971 and was awarded a Grammy for “Best Country Vocal Performance, Male” in 1972.
Pride is one of three African-American members of the Grand Ole Opry (the others being DeFord Bailey and Darius Rucker). He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
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His father intded to name him Charl Frank Pride, but owing to a clerical error on his birth certificate, his legal name was Charley Frank Pride.
Though he 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. 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 st to the Yankees' Class D team in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Later that season, while in the Negro leagues with the Louisville Clippers, two players – Pride and 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.
Pride pitched for several other minor league teams, his hopes of making it to the big leagues still alive, but was drafted into the United States Army in 1956. After basic training, he was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, where he was a quartermaster and played on the Fort's baseball team. That team won the All Army Sports Championship. Wh discharged in 1958, he rejoined the Memphis Red Sox.
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And had tryouts with the California Angels (1961) and the New York Mets (1962) organizations, but was not picked up by either team.
Wh he was laid off by the Timberjacks, he moved to work construction in Hela, Montana, in 1960. He was recruited to pitch for the local semipro baseball team, the East Hela Smelterites, and the team manager helped him get a job at the local Asarco lead smelter.
The lead smelter kept 18 jobs op specifically for baseball players, and arranged their shifts so they could play as a team.
There's Only One Charley Pride
Pride's singing ability soon came to the atttion of the team manager, who also paid him to sing for 15 minutes before each game, which increased attdance and earned Pride another $10 on top of the $10 he earned for each game. He also played gigs in the local area, both solo and with a band called the Night Hawks,
His job at the smelter was dangerous and difficult; he once broke his ankle. He routinely unloaded coal from railroad cars, shoveling it into a 2, 400-degree Fahrheit furnace while keeping clear of slag, a task that frequtly gave him burns. In a 2014 interview, Pride explained, I would work at the smelter, work the swing shift and th play music, said Pride. I'd work 11–7. Drive. Play Friday. Punch in. Drive. Polson. Philipsburg.
Betwe his smelter job and his music, he made a good living in the Hela area. He moved his wife and son to join him and they lived in Hela until 1967, purchasing their first home there, and with their childr Dion and Angela being born at the local hospital.
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In a 1967 interview with the Hela Indepdt Record, his wife Roze Pride commted that the family countered minor racism in Montana, citing an incidt where they were refused service in a restaurant and another time wh a realtor refused to show them a home, but she felt that the family dured less racism than she saw leveled against local Native American people, whose treatmt she compared to that giv to black people in the South.
Pride has gerally spok with fondness of the near-decade he spt there. Montana is a very conservative state ... I stood out like a neon. But once they let you in, you become a Montanan. Wh the rumor was that I was leaving. They kept saying, 'we will let you in, you can't leave.'
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 achievemts and historical relevance of 30 mostly-forgott 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 Mack.
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While he was active in baseball, Pride had be couraged to join the music business by country stars such as Red Sovine and Red Foley, and was working towards this career. In 1958, in Memphis, Pride visited Sun Studio and recorded some songs.
He performed his music solo at clubs and with a four-piece combo called the Night Hawks during the time he lived in Montana.
His break came wh Chet Atkins at RCA Records heard a demonstration tape and got Pride a contract. In 1966, he released his first RCA single, The Snakes Crawl at Night.
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Nashville manager and agt Jack D. Johnson signed Pride. Atkins was the longtime producer at RCA who had made stars out of country singers such as Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis, and others. Pride signed with RCA in 1965. The Snakes Crawl at Night did not chart. On the records of this song submitted to radio stations for airplay, the singer was listed as Country Charley Pride. Pride disputes that the omission of a photo was deliberate; he stated that getting promoters to bring in a Black country singer was a bigger problem: People didn't care if I was pink. RCA signed me ... they knew I was colored ... They decided to put the record out and let it speak for itself.
While living in Montana, he continued to sing at local clubs, and in Great Falls had an additional boost to his career wh he befrided local businessman Louis All Al Donohue, who owned radio stations, including KMON, the first stations to play Pride's records in Montana.
Soon after the release of The Snakes Crawl at Night, Pride released another single called Before I Met You, which also did not chart. Not long afterwards, his third single, Just Betwe You and Me, was released. This song finally brought Pride success on the country charts. The song reached number nine on Hot Country Songs on February 25, 1967.
Charley Pride Biography
According to a news item by the Associated Press, Pride made this commt in a 1992 interview: They used to ask me how it feels to be the 'first colored country singer' ... Th it was 'first Negro country singer;' th 'first black country singer.' Now I'm the 'first African-American country singer.' That's about the only thing that's changed.
Pride's amazing baritone — it hints at twang and melisma simultaneously, and to call it warm is to slight the brightness of its heat
The success of Just Betwe You and Me was ormous. Pride was nominated for a Grammy Award for the song the next year. In the late summer of 1966, on the strgth of his early releases, he was booked for his first large show, in Detroit's Olympia Stadium. Since no biographical information had be included with those singles, few of the 10, 000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was Black and discovered the fact only wh he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silce. I knew I'd have to get it over with sooner or later, Pride later remembered. I told the audice: 'Frids, I realize it's a little unique, me coming out here — with a permant suntan — to sing country and western to you. But that's the way it is.'
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The show became the first of a long and active career playing to large audices, his race soon becoming a minor detail compared to his success. In 1967, he became the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since founding member DeFord Bailey, who had last appeared in 1941.
Betwe 1969 and 1971, Pride had eight singles that reached number one 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
