Remembering Charley Pride: First Black country music superstar played in Negro Leagues
Charley Pride, the first Black country music superstar, died in Dallas on Saturday of complications from COVID-19. He was 86. But before his singing career, he played baseball in the Negro American League.
Pride, the son of a sharecropper, was raised in Sledge, Mississippi.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, posted on Twitter on Saturday afternoon that he is “absolutely heartbroken by the news,” along with a picture of Pride playing for the Memphis Red Sox.
Pride was a pitcher and an outfielder in the Negro American League with the Memphis Red Sox and in the Pioneer League in Montana.
He served two years in the Army. After that, Pride tried to return to baseball, but an arm injury ended his career.
Then, he became a country music star, selling more than 72 million albums. Pride in 2000 became the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Pride released dozens of albums and sold more than 25 million records during a music career that began in the mid-1960s. 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 won three Grammy Awards, had 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. Last month, he received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award.
“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.”
A baseball signed by Pride is housed in the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
In 2013, the museum presented the Jackie Robinson Lifetime Achievement Award to Pride.
His childhood dream of playing professional baseball came before his career in music.
“The award is given for career excellence in the face of adversity,” Kendrick said at the time. “You look at what he did — he’s a really good baseball player. And then he fell back into a country music career.
“We should all have a fallback plan like that.”
Pride was also a member of the National Advisory Board for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
