Charley Pride, First Black Country Music Icon, Dies At 86

DALLAS, TX — Charley Pride, a trailblazing baritone singer who shattered music industry barriers as the first Black country music star, died in Dallas Saturday due to complications from coronavirus, according to his publicist, Jeremy Westby. He was 86 years old.

Pride is known for his hits "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone" and "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" which propelled him to country music superstardom and helped him become the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

His legacy spans over several decades, beginning in the early 1960s. Pride released dozens of albums all the way up until 2017 and sold 25 million records. He clinched three Grammy Awards and had more than 30 no. 1 hits between 1969 and 1984, the Associated Press reported.

He also won the Country Music Association's Top Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year awards in 1972.

"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," Dolly Parton tweeted Saturday.

Fellow country singer, Ronnie Milsap, called Pride a "pioneer," adding that without his encouragement, he might have never gone to Nashville. "To hear this news tears out a piece of my heart," he wrote in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

The Mississippi native was not the first Black country artist to emerge during the 1960s, but with if anyone had the gumption to make it to stardom, it was Pride.

But for Pride, it was never about race, he always focused on the music.

"They used to ask me how it feels to be the 'first colored country singer,'" he told The Dallas Morning News in 1992, the Associated Press reported. "Then it was 'first Negro country singer;' then 'first black country singer.' Now I’m the 'first African-American country singer.' That’s about the only thing that’s changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it `skin hangups’ — it’s a disease."

In the early 1960s, Pride spent his free time singing country music as an aspiring young musician while he worked at a smelter in Helena, Mont. He was also a pitcher for the mining company's semipro baseball team, the East Helena Smelteries, The Washington Post reported.

By 1962, he had garnered a small fan base in Montana's honky tonk scene, which landed him an invitation to perform as an opener for country singers Red Sovine and Red Foley.

Sovine was highly impressed by Pride's performance and rich baritone and suggested that he try his luck in Nashville. And so he did, but it took him almost two years to get a contract, The Washington Post reported.

"Music is a beautiful way of expressing oneself and I truly believe music should not be taken as a protest," he told The Associated Press in 1985. "You can go too far in anything — singing, acting, whatever — and become politicized to the point you cease to be an entertainer."

In 2008, Pride was given a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the Mississippi Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts. And in 1997, he received the Living Legend award from The Nashville Network/Music City News.

He is survived by his grandchildren, three children, Kraig, Dion and Angela, and his wife, Rozene, whom he married in 1956.

This article originally appeared on the Dallas Patch