The Briefest Glimpse of Charley Pride

Two days before Martin Luther King Day, country-music icon Charley Pride turned up as the guest of honor at a charity event in Dallas. Pride, the son of a Mississippi sharecropper and one of the few black C&W stars, didn’t want to talk much Saturday night. (The Dallas resident talked a whole lot more back in 2008 with Zac Crain, who wrote a great profile of Pride for D.) When I asked the pioneering singer Saturday what he thought of today’s country music, he said, “It’s a little different from what we did. I’d say it’s about 70 rock, 30 country.” He’s 71 now, and still performing more than 30 dates a year. And his attitude toward race still seems in keeping with the true spirit of Dr. King. “I don’t have no skin hang-ups,” Pride (pictured) once said. “I’m no color. I’m just Charley Pride, the man.” He can say that again.