NOTABLE DEATHS
Charley Pride performs onstage during the The 54th Annual CMA Awards at Nashville’s Music City Center on Nov. 11 in Nashville, Tenn. Country music’s first Black superstar, died Saturday of complications from COVID-19. He was 86.
British author John le Carre attends the UK film premiere of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” the film based on his book, in London in 2011. The spy-turned-novelist, whose narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller, died Saturday at age 89.
Charley Pride, country music’s first Black superstar whose rich baritone on such hits as “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” helped sell millions of records and made him the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, has died. He was 86.
Mr. Pride died Saturday in Dallas of complications from COVID-19, according to Jeremy Westby of the public relations firm 2911 Media.
“I’m so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away. It’s even worse to know that he passed away from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus. Charley, we will always love you,” Dolly Parton tweeted.
Mr. Pride released dozens of albums and sold more than 25 million records during a career that began in the mid1960s. Hits besides “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” in 1971 included “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” “Burgers and Fries,” “Mountain of Love” and “Someone Loves You Honey.”
He had three Grammy Awards, more than 30 No. 1 hits between 1969 and 1984, won the Country Music Association’s Top Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year awards in 1972, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Smithsonian in Washington acquired memorabilia from Mr. Pride, including a
pair of boots and one of his guitars, for the the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Ronnie Milsap called him a “pioneer” and said that without his encouragement, Mr. Milsap might never gone to Nashville.
“To hear this news tears out a piece of my heart,” he said in a statement.
Until the early 1990s, when Cleve Francis came along, Mr. Pride was the only Black country singer signed to a major label.
“They used to ask me how it feels to be the ‘first colored country singer,’ ” he told The Dallas Morning News in 1992. “Then it was ‘first Negro country singer,’ then ‘first Black country singer.’ Now I’m the ‘first African-American country singer.’ That’s about the only thing that’s changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it ‘skin hangups’ — it’s a disease.”
Mr. Pride was born on March 18, 1934, in Sledge, Miss., the son of a sharecropper. He had seven brothers and three sisters.
In 2008, while accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the Mississippi Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts, Mr. Pride said he never focused on race.
“My older sister one time said, ‘Why are you singing THEIR music?’” Mr. Pride said. “But we all understand what the y’all-and-ussyndrome has been. See, I never as an individual accepted that, and I truly believe that’s why I am where I am today.”
To ensure that Mr. Pride was judged on his music and not his race, his first few singles were sent to radio stations without a publicity photo. After his identity became known, a few country radio stations refused to play his music.
For the most part, though, Mr. Pride said he was well received.
“I’d like to be remembered as a good person who tried to be a good entertainer and made people happy, was a good American who paid his taxes and made a good living,” he said in 1985. “I tried to do my best and contribute my part.”
He is survived by his wife, Rozene, whom he married in 1956; three children, Kraig, Dion and Angela; and several grandchildren.