Charley Pride
Country trailblazer BORN 1934
When the owner of a segregated Texas nightclub in the ’60s refused to let a pre-fame Charley Pride perform, his outrageously bold friend Willie Nelson kissed Pride on-stage – on the lips. Once Charley opened his mouth to sing, the stunned white audience forgot he was black and met his mellifluous, soulful, and authentically downhome baritone with unconditional applause.
From 1966 to 1987, Pride overcame Nashville’s racism and conservative politics to have 52 Top 10 country hits, with 27 Number 1s including All I Have To Offer You (Is Me), Is Anybody Goin’ To San Antone, Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’ and Mountain Of Love. He also popularised others such as The Snakes Crawl At Night, Just Between You And Me and Crystal Chandeliers. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000 and received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award last November at a mostly-unmasked event where he may have contracted the Covid that killed him.
The native Mississippian grew up picking cotton and later played semi-pro baseball before embarking on a singing career. Billed early on as ‘Country Charley’ Pride to emphasise his Southern roots, he explained, “I’ve been singing country music since I was 5. This is why I sound like I sound.” In the 1970s he became the first international black country star. A favourite in Britain, he also retained a loyal following in Ireland, where playing shows during the Troubles endeared him to audiences on both sides of the sectarian divide.
Across his career, he retained an admirable humility, with a genial warmth and self-effacing humour. “I realise I’ve got a permanent tan,” he joked to reactionary white audiences, easily disarming them, but he was no pushover. When honky-tonker Webb Pierce said to him, “Charley, it’s good for you to be in our music,” Pride bristled and calmly responded, “Webb, it’s my music, too.”