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Biography
Charley Pride (born Charley Frank Pride on 18 March 1934; died 12 December 2020) was an American singer, musician, guitarist, business owner, and professional baseball player. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–87), he garnered 52 top-10 hits on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. He also won the Entertainer of the Year award at the US Country Music Association Awards in 1971.
Becoming a trailblazing Country Music superstar was an improbable destiny for Pride, especially considering his humble beginnings as a sharecropper’s son on a cotton farm in Sledge, Mississippi. His unique journey to the top of the music charts includes a tumultuous detour through the world of Negro league, minor league and semi-pro baseball as well as many long years of labor alongside the vulcanic fires of a smelter. But in the end, with boldness, perseverance and undeniable musical talent, he managed to parlay a series of fortuitous encounters with Nashville insiders into an amazing legacy of hit singles and tens of millions in record sales.
