Charley Pride Dead: Country Music’s First Black Legend Dies From COVID-19 Complications

Charley Pride, the country music legend, has died, and the cause of death is complications of COVID-19, according to CMT News.

The country music news site reported that Pride died on Saturday, December 12, 2020. He was 86 years old. WKRN-TV journalist Julia Palazzo also tweeted the news, writing, “Country music legend and Hall of Famer, Charley Pride, has died in Dallas, Texas of complications from Covid-19 at age 86.”

Pride was a breakthrough artist in country music who achieved a string of successes. The CMT site called him “country music’s first African-American superstar,” who scored an amazing 29 number one hits and was a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry.

Mayor Mark Boughton, the mayor of Danbury, Connecticut, wrote, “RIP #CharleyPride a legend of country music.”

Here’s what you need to know:

Pride Was Raised in a Sharecropping Family & Overcame Discrimination

Charley Pride, Country’s First Black Superstar, Dies of Covid-19 Complications

According to CMT, Pride was born into a sharecropping family in Sledge, Mississippi. He grew up in the segregated south and once described walking four miles to his segregated grade school while white children were able to ride school buses.

He overcame discrimination to become a country music pioneer and legend, growing up listening to the Grand Ole Opry because his father didn’t like blues music, CMT reported.

According to his website biography, “Becoming a trailblazing Country Music superstar was an improbable destiny for Charley Pride 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 detour through the world of Negro league, minor league and semi-pro baseball as well as hard 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.”

Growing up, the bio says, “Charley was exposed primarily to Blues, Gospel and Country music. His father inadvertently fostered Charley’s love of Country music by tuning the family’s Philco radio to Nashville’s WSM-AM in order to catch Grand Ole Opry broadcasts. At 14 years of age, Charley purchased his first guitar—a Silvertone from a Sears Roebuck catalog—and taught himself how to play it by listening to the songs that he heard on that radio.”

Pride Wrote Recently About ‘Riding Out the COVID-19 Pandemic’ at Home

Pride had last posted on Facebook on December 8, writing, “We had a stash of new, shrinkwrapped vinyl LPs from my RCA and 16th Avenue Records days over at my office. I autographed a bunch of them along with some books while riding out the Covid-19 pandemic at home this summer. My website team has made everything available on my revamped website at https://www.charleypride.com! Check it out if you have a moment!”

Tributes Flowed in for Charley Pride

GettyCharley Pride

Tributes flowed in for Charley Pride as news of his death spread.

People shared news of Pride’s death, remembering meeting him and quotes he uttered.

“No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another — I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.” — #CharleyPride, a groundbreaking Country Music artist & a great man. #RIPCharleyPride pic.twitter.com/9K79JbntZA

— David Wild (@Wildaboutmusic) December 12, 2020

“Sad to share the news that Charley Pride died today in Dallas due to complications from Covid-19 at age 86. Charley is country music’s first Black superstar and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame,” wrote Kurt Bardella.

Sad to share the news that Charley Pride died today in Dallas due to complications from Covid-19 at age 86.

Charley is country music’s first Black superstar and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.#RIPCharleyPride pic.twitter.com/HyFXjtrmb8

— Kurt Bardella (@kurtbardella) December 12, 2020

David Carroll wrote, “RIP #CharleyPride, who was 86. I will always believe the fact that this man dominated country music in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the greatest entertainment achievements in history. Incredibly, no one ever made a movie about him.”

Pride was the subject of false death reports in the past, but this time, sadly, the news is real.