"I Was Just Born to Be Exactly What You See"

 Category: News/Obituary

Country music has lost one of its greatest voices of the 60s and 70s in the death of Charley Pride. 

Pride died today (12/12) of complications from COVID-19 in Dallas.

Charley Frank Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi and grew up listening to country music and singing along with the singers on the Grand Ole Opry.  Although he always sang and played guitar, his first love was baseball.  He was a star pitcher for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro League in the 50s and early 60s (split by his time as quartermaster in the Army), and was twice selected to the Negro League All-Star Team.  

But that love of music couldn't stay in the background, and after local gigs in Montana got him noticed, a demo tape made it to Chet Atkins, who signed Pride to RCA and released his first single in 1966, the great love-triangle-murder song "The Snakes Crawl At Night.”

Pride's took care to keep traditional country sounds in his music amid the pop-influenced "Nashville sound" and "countrypolitan" crossover that was popular at the time.  As a result, he quickly rose to stardom; then, in 1971, superstardom thanks to "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’."

The hits kept coming: "I'm Just Me," "Gone, On the Other Hand," a cover of "Kaw-Liga," "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)," and countless more that kept a string of top ten hits going through 1984's "The Power of Love."

Among a career full of accolades Pride was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.  In 2016, he was given the "Master" Award from the Ameripolitan Music Awards.  And, earlier this year, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys.

Survivors include Rozine, Pride's wife of 64 years, and three children. 

One of Pride's great hits was "I'm Just Me," where he explained himself succinctly:

I was just born to be exactly what you see

Nothing more or less

I’m not the worst or the best…

Today, and every day, Im just me

Indeed he was, and how blessed we are that he was just Charley Pride.

The legendary Charley Pride was 86.