US country music star Charley Pride has died of complications from Covid-19 at the age of 86, his family said Saturday in a message posted to the singer’s website.
Pride’s “rich baritone voice and impeccable song-sense altered American culture,” the statement read further.
Born a sharecropper’s son in Sledge, Mississippi, on March 18, 1934, Pride became US country music’s first Black superstar and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Between 1967 and 1987, Pride delivered 52 Top 10 country hits, won Grammy awards, and became RCA Records’ top-selling country artist.
His best-known songs include “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” and “Please Help Me I’m Falling.”
He won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award in 1971, its top male vocalist prize in 1971 and 1972, and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
Friends and colleagues remembered Charley Pride in Twitter posts. Dolly Parton tweeted: “I’m so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away. It’s even worse to know that he passed away from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus. Charley, we will always love you.”
Billy Ray Cyrus tweeted: “Charley Pride opened the door for so many including me. He took down walls and barriers meant to divide. He became a bridge of music for music lovers who found they had way more in common than they had different.”
He described Pride as “a gentleman… legend and true trailblazer.” “With much respect #RIP,” Cyrus added.
