Charley Pride

(1934-2020)

American country musician

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Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American country singer. Beginning his career as a Negro league baseball player in the early-1950s, he later pursued a career in country music, becoming the genre's first black superstar. The period of his greatest musical success was from around 1969 to 1975, when he was the top-selling artist for RCA Records, outselling even Elvis Presley and John Denver. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. Songs such as "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)", "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone", and "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", among others, typified the "countrypolitan" style that made him famous and became crossover-pop hits. He won the Entertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971 and was awarded a Grammy for "Best Country Vocal Performance, Male" in 1972. Pride later ventured into gospel music, releasing his first gospel album Did You Think to Pray in 1971. In 1973 he performed "The River Song" from the motion picture musical Tom Sawyer.