ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020057
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BRANSON, MO.
SOURCE: KAREN TESTA ASSOCIATED PRESS
When Charley Pride first began performing, his introductions always were followed by a swell of applause, then a stunned silence as he reached the spotlight.
After a few shows, he realized why.
``Now ladies and gentlemen, we realize it's a little unique me coming out here on a country-music show wearing this permanent tan,'' he told his audiences during his first year on the road.
``Automatically, it's another big applause because I'm saying exactly what they're thinking,'' he said during an interview in his dressing room at the Charley Pride Theatre in Branson.
After 30 years of performing and selling more records than any other RCA recording artist except Elvis Presley, the shock has worn off, but the mystique remains.
The 59-year-old Pride was the first black to break into ``America's music,'' as he likes to call it. Yet he never intended to serve as a role model.
``I never made it a point to figure out into the political side of 'Why this?' and 'Why that?','' he said, ``because it's enough just to make it in this world, to pay your taxes, than to become so many things.''
Pride was born into poverty in Sledge, Miss., one of 11 children. He picked cotton, milked cows and listened to country music. His plan was to be a Major League ballplayer until he was 35, then perform.
``When I was growing up in Mississippi, I didn't know what I was going to be, but I said I was going to be something other than a cotton-picker,'' he said. ``Baseball was going to be my out.''
In a way, it was.
While playing on a company-sponsored club in Montana, Pride would sing the national anthem before games and Hank Williams songs on the team bus. A club owner in Helena asked him to sing professionally, and other invitations followed.
After an unsuccessful tryout with the California Angels, Pride returned to Montana, where he worked in a smelter by day and played clubs at night. His break came when a disc jockey got him a meeting with country and western legends Red Sovine and Red Foley. Pride sang two songs for them between their sets - and was added to that night's second show.
Sovine also gave Pride his first contract in Nashville, and in the mid-1960s he released his first single for RCA Records, ``Snakes Crawl at Night,'' written by Mel Tillis.
Now an old friend and fellow theater owner in Branson, Tillis said his publishing company was reluctant to allow Pride to record the song.
``It had something to do with color,'' Tillis said. ``I think there was an enigma there, a mystery, and they just didn't want to waste a song.
``I said ... I needed the money. I had three girls. He said, `Yeah, he can have my songs all day long.'''
After three recordings, Pride quit his smelter job and soon was opening for Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Willie Nelson, among others. Lawrence Welk gave him his first network TV appearance.
Since then, his fans have responded in staggering numbers: In three decades, Pride has sold more than 30 million records, and earned 35 No. 1 singles, three Grammys and 31 gold and four platinum albums.
Not lacking for self-confidence, Pride also will say he's still a good ballplayer and great golfer. He has been married 39 years to Rozene, has three children and two grandsons. The largest photo in his dressing room is of himself, centered over his southwestern-style sofa.
Ego aside, friends like Tillis remark on Pride's generosity and heart.
``He cares, boy does he care,'' Tillis said. ``If it isn't right, he wants to know why and what he can do to fix it.''
``I'm a fan of Charley Pride and consider myself lucky to be considered his friend,'' said Fran Boyd, executive director of the Academy of Country Music in Hollywood, Calif.
But Pride says it is he who has been blessed by being able to do something he loves while making others happy and making a good living at it, too.
``There ain't many things that you can find that can satisfy a human being any better than that,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: color photoby CNB