Song of the Day 12/13: Charley Pride, “The Snakes Crawl at Night”
Hall of Fame country singer Charley Pride died of Covid-19 yesterday at age 86. He didn’t break the color barrier in country music, but he was the genre’s first black superstar, racking up 30 No. 1 hits on the country charts.
Born in the Delta in Sledge, Miss., Pride grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry rather than the blues, and when his baseball career petered out in the low minors in Montana — a pitcher, he earlier played in the Negro American League in the waning days of segregated baseball, and was once traded for a team bus — he stayed put and went to work at a smelting operation. He kept playing ball for the company team, and when they heard him sing they also gave him $10 a game to perform the national anthem. He also sang in local bars on the weekends; his big break came when Chet Atkins heard a demo tape.
“The Snakes Crawl at Night,” co-written by Mel Tillis, was Pride’s first single, released in 1966. It didn’t chart, but the jealous-murder ballad is one of the most colorful songs in his catalogue, and it’s included on several of his greatest hits collections.
Pride’s first hit came with his third release, “Just Between You and Me,” in 1967. That led to a booking at Detroit’s 10,000-seat Olympia Stadium, his first concert in front of a big audience. The record company hadn’t released any biographical information about Pride, so few in the crowd realized he was Black — something that became clear when he walked on stage and the applause died. “I knew I’d have to get it over with sooner or later,” Pride recalled. “I told the audience: ‘Friends, I realize it’s a little unique, me coming out here with a permanent suntan to sing country and western to you. But that’s the way it is.’ ”
Though some radio stations wouldn’t play his singles, record buyers didn’t seem to care. Pride racked up 51 Top 10 country singles in a career that spanned more than 60 years. His biggest hit, and signature song, came in 1971. “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’ ” crossed over to the Billboard pop chart, where it reached No. 21.
He performed it Nov. 11 at the Country Music Awards where, it was noted, many attendees were not masked. He sang it with Jimmie Allen, a young country singer from Milton, Del., who relocated to Nashville in 2007.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxM4GDimobE
