Charley Pride

Biography & Overview

Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American country singer and baseball player. Beginning his career as a Negro league baseball player in the early-1950s, he later pursued a career in country music. The period of his greatest musical success was from around 1969 to 1975, when he was the top-selling artist on 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.