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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIn the early nineteen sixties that Charley Pride, an aspiring country singer but then still a minor league baseball pitcher his life was far more mundane than his hope. In Helena, Montana, he worked as a smelter for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, whilst spending what little free time he had playing for what was the company\u00b4s semi professional baseball team the East Helena Smelterites, which must have been a heck of a name on which to hang a song from the terraces or bleachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Any African American working in a genre that seldom welcomed black voices would stand out for all sorts of reasons but Charley turned that to some advantage, turning his \u00b4small but enthusiastic fan base\u00b4 developed whilst singing in Montana honky tonks to attract an invitation to open a show performed by country headliners of the time, Red Sovine and Red Foley, in 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pride sang Heartaches By The Number and Lovesick Blues, and Sovine, already then a veteran performer, instantly recognised the magnetism Charley held over the show\u00b4s white audience and suggested he seek out contract opportunities in Nashville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Washington Post obituary it took Charley Pride nearly two years to acquire that contract. Although record executives loved his demo tapes they had cold feet after viewing his picture. In one audition, he was told to \u00b4now sing in your regular voice.\u00b4 One talent scout apparently encouraged Mr. Pride to consider working as a novelty act by dressing in Colonial garb and adopting the stage name of George Washington Carver III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Chet Eventually, it was country guitarist Chet Atkins, who was also an RCA Records executive, saw promise in the singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Radio stations received his first singles, credited to Country Charley Pride, without publicity photos, a cautious, but perhaps sensible and sensitive move by Atkins. Disc jockeys latched onto the records, and country fans listened. \u00b4It was RCA\u2019s decision not to play up or down the colour thing, but to just let the voice go, put the record out and let the people decide,\u00b4 Mr. Pride later told The Washington Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having grown up in the Mississippi cotton before becoming the first major African American singing star in country music, Charley Pride died on December 12th<\/sup>, aged 86 in Dallas. According to a statement from the Nashville public relations firm 2911 Media, the cause was complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harmonica player DeFord Bailey, who was Black, had been one of the earliest and most popular cast members of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s. A generation later, soul stars Ray Charles<\/a> and Solomon Burke<\/a> recorded country songs. But it was Mr. Pride who shattered a show-business barrier, paving the way for subsequent Black entertainers like Stoney Edwards, Big Al Downing and Darius Rucker, who followed his lead in Nashville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Country-music historian Rich Kienzle said Charley embraced a traditional sound: recording with fiddles and steel guitar in an era when many country singers were trying to sound like Las Vegas entertainers. On-stage, he also liked to defuse tension with self-deprecating humour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b4He would make jokes to audiences about having a \u2018permanent tan,\u2019 Kienzle said. \u201cThe music won out over any bigotry.\u00b4\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n With more than 50 Top 10 hits on the Billboard country charts between 1966 and 1984, Charley Pride was one of the genre\u2019s most popular and durable performers. He sang of hoboing and hitchhiking on The Atlantic Coastal Line and Is Anybody Goin To San Antone<\/a> , adultery on The Snakes Crawl At Night<\/a> and heartbreak on Just Between You and Me<\/a> and brought a pained believability to each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biographical song Mississippi Cotton Picking Delta Town<\/a> (1974), written for him by Harold Dorman and George Wiley Gann, evoked his hard-scrabble youth with lines that spoke of how \u00b4I\u2019ve picked cotton till my fingers hurt\/ Draggin\u2019 a sack through the delta dirt\u00b4 and the restlessness that compelled him to leave:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b4One dusty street to walk up and down,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n nothing much to do but hang around<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n in a Mississippi cotton pickin\u2019 delta town.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Crystal Chandeliers might be the song I most associate with Charley Pride it is without doubt that his most commercially successful songs was Kiss An Angel Good Morning.<\/a> This 1971 title, written by Ben Peters, appeared on the pop charts for four months. In the 1971 film adaptation of Ken Kesey\u2019s novel Sometimes a Great Notion, Charley sang All His Children<\/a>, a quasi-country gospel song co-written by Henry Mancini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He often turned down songs that he believed were too controversial. One such song, Blackjack County Chain, by songwriter Red Lane, recounted a chain gang beating a sadistic sheriff to death. After Mr. Pride rejected it, his frequent touring mate, Willie Nelson, later recorded it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aata.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/photo-3-14.jpg\")
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