 Charley
Pride has had an illustrious music career. One of music's premiere artists, Pride is
country's first African-American star. For the past quarter century, Pride has been one of
the Top 15 best-selling artists of all time. His body of work includes a legacy of 36 No.1
hit singles, over 25 million albums sold worldwide, 31 gold and 4 platinum albums --
including one quadruple-platinum. Charlie
Pride was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Election to the Country Music
Hall of Fame is the highest honor in country music.
Charlie Frank Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi,
on March 18, 1938. Charlie's parents were both sharecroppers and cotton pickers, but in
nineteen fifty-six Charlie's mother died. Charlie's father retired from driving school
buses and cutting hair, but today he lives in Quitman County. Before Charlie's mother
died, she and his father had eleven children, eight boys and three girls. Since he was
young and couldn't decide for himself what he could or couldn't do, he was forced to pick
cotton as a child. However, he grew up listening to country music. He walked around the
house singing songs of Hank Williams and Roy Acuff. . At the age of six, his
happiest moments were spent listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the country music radio
station. As the days, weeks, and months went by, Charlie was given the nickname
"Mocking Bird" by a neighbor who says Charlie's daily chores were to sing each
morning and to play baseball. When Charlie Pride was fourteen, he bought his first guitar
from Sears and Roebuck and taught himself how to play by listening to different songs on
the radio. Charlie didn't want to fall into father footsteps,. His plan was to become
famous in baseball, but his dream was to be a country singer. At the age of seventeen, he
began to seek his fortune
Like any seventeen-year-old Charlie had to get a job, but
no matter where Charlie Pride went, he still carried his guitar tucked under his arms.
Charlie entered a talent contest at Lave's Grand Theater in Memphis, Tennessee. The
following day, Charlie left to attend baseball training camp. Charlie's career was a
combination of baseball and singing. Some days when he had a game, he would walk seven
miles to pitch nine innings. When the game was over, he would walk back home. In 1955 he
began playing for the American Negro League. Charlie played for Detroit, Michigan;
Memphis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama. Then for two years Charlie stopped playing
baseball to serve time in the military. While in the military, Pride married Rozene
Cockren, a cosmetologist from Oxford, Mississippi. They have three children: Kraig, Dion,
and Angela.
In 1958, he returned to baseball in the American
Negro League where he played with the Birmingham Black Barons . In 1959 Charlie Pride
spent time working, unloading wood, and playing baseball for Memphis until he was cut from
the team Charlie decided to go to Montana to work out, but while he was there he got a job
at the Zinc Smelting Manning Company. There he also played semi-professional baseball in
Montana. Pride also worked in club Helena two nights a weeks.
By 1960, Pride left semi-professional baseball and the
American Negro League to play for a C-team. He also had a chance to try out for the
Angels, but he was rejected. Pride tried for the last time to play for the New York Mets.
Charlie bought six bats and engraved his name in them. He sent the bats along with a
telegram to the Mets camp at St. Petersburg. The manager didn't like Pride because he
thought Charlie Pride was trying to fit in with the country people. So Charlie sent a
telegram saying "I'm not a black man singing white man music, I am an American
singing American music. I worked out those problem years ago, and everybody else will have
to work their way out of it too." As a result, the manager told the other players if
they wanted to see Charlie Pride tryout, they would have to take Pride out to a pasture
because he wasn't running a tryout camp. That's what ended Charlie Pride's baseball
career.
Charlie went back home where he was to audition and be
presented to Jack Clement, Clement was a song writer and record producer. After the
audition Charlie proved to Chet Atkins and the manager for the Mets that he wasn't trying
to fit in with the whites, he was just a business man singing American music. Chet Atkins,
vice-president of RCA recording in Nashville, realized that Charlie Pride's country
singing was a talent. This led Pride to a RCA recording contract.
By 1966 Charlie had recorded thirteen songs and was made
best country and western male vocalist In nineteen seventy-five, he had twenty-two records
and twelve singles that were gold. Two of his best and popular records were Snakes
Crawl at Night, and Just Between You and Me .
Pride has topped the charts over the years with songs that
now stand as modern classics. "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" went on to be a
million-selling crossover single. Other memorable hits include "Is Anybody Goin' to
San Antone?", "I'm So Afraid of Losing You Again," "Mississippi Cotton
Picking Delta Town," "Someone Loves You Honey," "When I Stop Leaving
I'll Be Gone," "Burgers and Fries," "Mountain of Love," and
"You're So Good When You're Bad," to name a few.
Pride's prowess in business by the mid 1980s was beginning
to equal that of his recording career. During this period, Pride split his time between
his music and his business activities in banking, broadcasting and real estate. He is the
major stockholder in the largest minority owned bank in Texas, the First Texas Bank. He
has owned four diverse radio stations and has extensive real estate holdings across the
country, including the Charley Pride Theater in Branson, Mo. Pride stays actively involved
in the music industry through his publishing company, The Pride Group, and his production
company.
Pride entered the 1990s with even more fervor, receiving
richly-deserved commendation for his years of hard work. In 1993 he was inducted into the
Grand Ole Opry, 26 years after he first played there as a guest. He was awarded the
prestigious Academy of Country Music's Pioneer Award in 1994 and took home Turner
Broadcasting's Trumpet Award for career achievement in 1995. In 2000 he was elected into
the Country Music Hall of Fame.
by Damien
Allen |
P. Diddy at the MTV Video Music Awards
National Bar
Blacks In Government
Black Hotel Owners
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