Charley Frank Pride (born March 18, 1938) is a country music artist. During his career, he has had thirty-six number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. He was one of the few African-American country musicians to have considerable success in the largely all-white country music industry.

Born to poor sharecroppers, one of eleven children in Sledge, Mississippi, Pride is a timeless everyman, revered by his musical peers and adored by countless millions of fans around the globe. Charley Pride unofficially started his music career in the late 1950s as a ballplayer with the Negro American League’s Memphis Red Sox singing and playing guitar on the team bus between ballparks. Self-taught on a guitar bought at the age 14 from Sears Roebuck, Pride would join various bands’ onstage a