Not Fade Away
CHARLEY PRIDE
Country-pop superstar (1934-2020)
HAD it not been for an injury to his throwing arm, Charley Pride may well have realised his ambition to become a top pro baseball player in the US. But sport’s loss proved to be country music’s gain. Blessed with a smooth baritone and an everyman touch, Pride became country’s first black superstar, selling over 70 million records for RCA. Only Elvis Presley shifted more product for the label.
The son of a Mississippi sharecropper, Pride started singing and playing guitar as a teenager, enthralled by the sound of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. He pitched for a number of minor league baseball teams during the ’50s and early ’60s, while also holding down heavy manual jobs and playing local gigs in Helena, Montana. Scouted by country star Red Sovine, who convinced him to move to Nashville, Pride signed to RCA Victor in 1965 on the recommendation of Chet Atkins. His first major country hit, the Grammy-nominated “Just Between You And Me”, landed a year
