Randy Owen remembers Charley Pride, K.T. Oslin
Updated Dec 22, 2020;
Posted Dec 22, 2020
Charley Pride performs Kiss An Angel Good Morning at the 50th annual CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn. on Nov. 3, 2016. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
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Pride was not one of the scheduled performers that night, Owen said.
“He flew in totally secret,” Owen said. “I had no idea to look for him. Then there in the crowd comes Charley Pride walking up. I said, ‘Charley, what are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I hear you’re doing something for St. Jude.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He comes up onstage and gets the guitar and of course the crowd loved him.”
Charley Pride, country musicâs first black superstar and the first black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died Saturday, Dec. 12 at the age of 86.
Pride visited Branson many times to perform and also had an extended stay in Branson in the 90âs where he performed at the Charley Pride Theatre, now the White House Theatre, for a few years. Pride died in Dallas, Texas due to complications from COVID-19.
Born a sharecropperâs son in Sledge, Mississippi on March 18, 1934, Pride left the farm to play baseball. Pride first played organized games in the Iowa State League and then professional games in the Negro American League as a pitcher and outfielder for the Memphis Red Sox. In 1953, he signed a contract with the Boise Yankees, the Class C farm team of the New York Yankees.Â
Charley Pride was traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a bus
Updated Dec 13, 2020;
Posted Dec 13, 2020
Former Negro League basbeall player and country music great Charley Pride waves to fans prior to the start of ESPN Classic s Vintage Live Birmingham Black Barons and the Bristol Barnstormers game at Rickwood Field in 2006. News staff photo Tamika Moore bnbn
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In 1999, Pride told former Birmingham News reporter Bill Plott about how he was traded to the Birmingham Black Barons in 1954 in exchange for a team bus. This is the article in its entirety:
If the story’s not quite true, it ought to be because so many people have heard it and believe it: Charley Pride and a teammate were traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a team bus.