#CHARLEY PRIDE KISS AN ANGEL GOOD MORNIN PROFESSIONAL#

A year later he released his first single, Snakes Crawl At Night. His big break came in 1966 when Chet Atkins heard a demonstration tape of Pride singing and invited him to Nashville, arranging a contract for him with RCA. By 1965 he had moved his family to Helena, Montana, where his music career was taking off in local clubs and through contracted appearances. When he got out he tried out for the Los Angeles Angels and the Mets in 1962, but both turned him down. He would pitch for several minor league teams, inching closer with each team to the big leagues, but a stint in the Army from 1956 to ’58 derailed his progress. He was good enough as a pitcher to hook on with the Memphis Red Sox, of the Negro American League in 1952, and a year later signed a contract to play with one of the New York Yankees farm teams in Boise, Idaho.

#CHARLEY PRIDE KISS AN ANGEL GOOD MORNIN PROFESSIONAL#

But at the same time he showed considerable aptitude for baseball, and while he loved music his life’s dream was to play professional baseball. He got his first guitar when he was fourteen and taught himself to play. But what I learned during that Saturday interview was that Charley Pride was a former professional baseball player.īorn in Sledge, Mississippi, in 1934, Pride was one of eleven children born to sharecropper parents.

This was a long time ago, in the early 70s, but Pride already had a string of hits on the radio – Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’, Is Anybody Goin’ To San Antone, Mississippi Cotton Pickin’ Delta Town, and others. Now Charley Pride isone of my favorite singers…since the time I saw an interview on the old Saturday Baseball Game of The Week broadcast with Pride and host Joe Garagiola. “One of your favorite country singers is doing a benefit in Arlington this week and I’m going to go. My cousin Paul Fulks, who lives in Arlington, Texas, called me in the fall of 2019. They say music, at its best, is made to make the soul feel good. I hope some of you enjoy the profiles of popular music I share from time to time, because frankly, they’re fun to do and bring back a lot of good memories. If music is indeed made to make one feel good, hardly anyone has done it better than Charley Pride…or blazed a wider trail in the country music field.

Charley pride kiss an angel good mornin