Charlie Pride Dies Of COVID at 86
• Trailblazing Country music legend Charley Pride, whose rich baritone voice and impeccable song-sense altered American culture, died Saturday, December 12, 2020, in Dallas at the age of 86 due to complications from COVID-19. Born a sharecropper’s son in Sledge, Mississippi, on March 18, 1934, Pride emerged from Southern cotton fields to become country music’s first Black superstar and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. “No person of color had ever done what he has done,” said Darius Rucker in the PBS American Masters film Charley Pride: I’m Just Me.
Between 1967 and 1987, Pride delivered 52 Top 10 Country hits, won Grammy awards, and became RCA Records’ top-selling Country artist, with chart-topping hits including “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin,'” “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” and “Mountain of Love.” He won the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award in 1971, its top male vocalist prize in 1971 and 1972, and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
Pride’s musicality opened minds and superseded prejudice. “We’re not color-blind yet, but we’ve advanced a few paces along the path and I like to think I’ve contributed something to that process,” Pride wrote in his memoir. His final performance was on November 11, 2020, when he sang “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'” during the CMA Awards show with Jimmie Allen, who counts Pride among his heroes.
Pride was the husband of Ebby Rozene Cohran Pride, father to Carlton Kraig Pride, Charles Dion Pride, and Angela Rozene Pride, the grandfather of five and great-grandfather of two. He also leaves behind siblings Harmon Pride, Stephen Pride, Catherine Sanders, and Maxine Pride, as well as numerous nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to The Pride Scholarship at Jesuit College Preparatory School, St. Philips School and Community Center, The Food Bank, or the charity of your choice. [Photo credit: Joseph Llanes]
