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Quick Facts
- NAME: Charley Frank Pride
- OCCUPATION: Guitarist, Singer
- BIRTH DATE: March 18, 1938 (Age: 74)
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Sledge, Mississippi
- ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces
Best Known For
Charley Pride is one of the few black country musicians to have had considerable success in the largely white country music industry.
Charley Pride . (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 10:10, May 25, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502
Charley Pride [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502, May 25
" Charley Pride ." 2012. Biography.com 25 May 2012, 10:10 http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502
' Charley Pride ', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502 [accessed May 25, 2012]
" Charley Pride ," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502 (accessed May 25, 2012).
Charley Pride [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 25]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502.
Charley Pride , http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502 (last visited May 25, 2012).
Charley Pride , http://www.biography.com/people/charley-pride-546502 (last visited May 25, 2012).
Synopsis
Profile
Musician. Born March 18, 1938, in Sledge, Mississippi, as one of 11 children. His parents, who were poor sharecroppers, named their son "Charl Frank Pride," but due to an error on his birth certificate, his legal name became Charley Frank Pride.
Pride taught himself to play guitar in his early teens, but his dream was to become a professional baseball player. In 1952, he was selected to join the Negro American League, pitching for the Memphis Red Sox, Louisville Clippers, Boise Yankees, and Birmingham Black Barons. While he traveled from game to game, Pride often sang and played guitar on the team bus. On a trip to Nashville, Pride met Jack Johnson, who promised the musician a management contract. A year later, Pride returned to the city to record a demo, featuring the singles "The Snakes Crawl at Night" and "Atlantic Coastal Line." The recording made it to RCA Records head, Chet Atkins, who immediately signed him to the label. Pride officially released "Snakes Crawl at Night"??his first single??in January 1966.
It was his third single, "Just Between You and Me," that launched Pride to stardom, reaching No. 9 on the U.S. country charts and he won a Grammy Award for the song the next year. Following his win, Pride had his first No. 1 hit with "All I Have to Offer" (1969). The recognition led to a long and auspicious career for Pride, making him the first African-American superstar in country music. Over the next 30 years, Pride recorded 36 No. 1 hits and watched four albums go platinum. He has also been listed among the Top 20 best-selling country artists of all-time, and is second in sales only to Elvis Presley.
On May 1, 1993, Pride was invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry, the first African-American to be inducted. The next year, Pride published his autobiography, Pride: The Charley Pride Story and was given the Pioneer Award by the Academy of Country Music. In July of 1999, Charley received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and received country music's highest honor On October 4, 2000??induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Pride currently resides in Dallas, Texas, with his wife Rozene. The couple has three children: Kraig, Dion and Angela.
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Nashville Sound
View groupThe Nashville Sound developed in the late 1950s, when recording studios and artists replaced some of the traditional elements of honky-tonk music with more contemporary pop music sounds. Producer and musician Chet Atkins was one of the genre's inventors, and is credited with bringing country music to a much wider audience. With his smooth voice, Charley Pride is one of country music's few African-American stars—and the only one to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. Women were also crucial to the popularity of the Nashville sound, with stars like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynne bringing women's perpectives, as well as glamour, to the genre.
Not only did the Nashville Sound influence the sound of country music, but it also helped to establish Nashville, Tennessee, as the country music capital of the world. Thousands of aspiring artists now flock to the city each year, hoping they might be the next big, musical discovery.
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Gap-Toothed Grinners
View groupThey've been referred to as a sign of happiness, luck, good fortune, sexuality and wanderlust. Cultures all around the world have their take on gap teeth, and now—thanks to prominent figures who proudly flash the space in their smile—they're considered a mark of beauty and individuality. Here are a few of the stars who helped to make gap teeth fashionable, proving to men and women everywhere that they no longer need to be ashamed of their grins.
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Famous Pisceans 456 people in this group
