A country music hitmaker and trailblazer whose career spanned six decades, Charley Pride has passed away at age 86 due to complications of COVID-19.
The genre’s first Black superstar, Pride was a member of the Grand Ole Opry, inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and charting 67 singles during the course of his career, including 29 No.
1 hits between 1969 and 1983. The son of sharecroppers, Pride was born in Mississippi in 1934. As a teenager, he picked cotton until earning enough money to buy his first guitar.
After a brief career playing professional baseball in the Negro American League followed by a stint in the Army, Pride was working as a smelting plant in Helena, Montana in 1962 when country stars Red Foley and Red Sovine