From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Mar 18, 2002  1:16 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Charley Pride
 
CHARLEY PRIDE (By Shaun Mather)

Born 18 March 1938, Sledge, Mississippi

The most famous black singer in country music history, Charley Pride broke
down musical barriers to score 36 number one hits records to a predominantly
white audience. The son of a sharecropper, Pride was born on a cotton farm
in Sledge, Mississippi. He bought a guitar when he was fourteen but on
leaving school, seemed destined for a career in baseball. He played in the
Negro American League for the Detroit Eagles and then the Memphis Red Sox,
separated by a two-year stint in the US Army. Injury forced him to quit the
sport, allowing him to devote more time to country music. Backstage at a
Red Sovine concert in 1963, he sang for Sovine and Red Foley, who both
advised him to move to Nashville, where he spent a couple of years before
coming to the attention of Jack Clement who in turn sent a demo to Chet
Atkins at RCA. He signed to the label in 1966 but when his debut single was
released, "The Snakes Crawl At Night", RCA decided not to publish any
publicity photos, fearing that the white country audience wouldn't want to
support a black artist. The breakthrough came at the end of the year when
"Just Between You And Me" went to number nine and he became the first
coloured singer on the Grand Ole Opry since Deford Bailey, over forty years
earlier. Between 1969 and '71 he had 6 straight number one's, and failed to
hit the Top Ten just three times in 54 attempts. He left RCA for the 16th
Avenue label in 1986 and has since recorded for Honest Entertainment. In
1994 he was given the Academy of Country Music's Pioneer Award.