Charlie Pride's first career wasn't music, it was baseball.

Remembering Charlie Pride on what would have been his 91st. Bob had the chance to video interview Mr Pride back in 1990. Here are some audio soundbites from that interview.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Bob Pickett Bob Pickett Radio Podcast. You know today
is March the eighteenth, and let's celebrate the birth of
one of the greatest country singers ever on this day.
Born in March the eighteenth, nineteen thirty four, Charlie Pride. Now,
we lost mister Pride a few years ago, but I
was digging through some archives from old flip cameras, remember
flip cameras. Found an interview I did with Charlie Pride

(00:24):
back in twenty ten. He was in town at the
Austin Rodeo and we sat down and got to do
an interview with him, and we talked about a lot.
We talked about his career. Did you know that mister
Pride has got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame right between.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Between Gladys Knight and Lennond Bernstein.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So it's a lot of time they'll put you on
the Hollywood Walker Fame and put your star on there.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
But they might put around a tree or something. You know, well, Peo,
people might urinate on him, or it's not that way
with yours.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I don't think they're gonna do that this last night,
and Leonard Bernstein said, so I'm covered pretty good there.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
I think you KNOWLD fans host me know this. But
you you're a Grammy Award winner too. You want a
Grammy three? You were three gr total of three Grammys. Yeah,
he's I've been very fortunate, Bob. I uh.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
But the thing is, people say, don't you uh, don't
you get excited or don't you want you just act
like you?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
And they'll say, well, where is you? Are you really
Telly payed? Where's your bodyguards? Where's your entourage?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I said, I don't have entourage, you know, And he said, oh,
he wouldn't be walking.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Around out here like this big I come like that,
you know, and that sort of thing. So I get
that a lot. I remember my one and only manager
that I had. He said to me, he said, what
if you get biggest elvis and you can't go out?
And you can't? I said, no, I'm not gonna get
that big.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I said, No matter how big I get, I'm gonna
go play golf and I'm gonna go work.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Down the street said yeah, but what if you do?
I said, I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I mean, if somebody choose to believe that I am as.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Big as big as Ami, which I have not.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
But if I did, I said, I'm not gonna get
put it in a conky mom. I'm gonna I'm gonna
walk out and play golf and do everything else.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
And I've done.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Certainly a humble man. But let me tell you that
Charlie Pride was a top selling artist for RCA Records.
He even outsold Elvis and John Denver. Between nineteen sixty
nine and nineteen seventy five, he had fifty two top
ten hits on Billboards Hot Country Charts. Of course, Country
Music Hall of Favor did so much for country music.
But you know what, he really wanted to play baseball.

(02:42):
In fact, he started out playing charted his career in
the Negro League Baseball Player in the early nineteen fifties,
and that is something that he really loved.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I think every kid, I feel has.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
A a dream they'd like to do, and is all.
When I saw Jackie Robinson Golden Major Legs, I said,
here's my way out of the cotton field.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
I said, you know what I like to do is
golden to.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Major Legs and break all the records there and sit
and new one by the time I was thirty five
or thirty six, then go sing. That was my intention
and I and when they say who hit the most
on one of my baby plank Aaron, it was Charlie Pride.
And who was the last for wanted hit her? I
tell you he was Tryli Pride.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
That was my That was my uh uh dream. I
would have loved to done that. But to tell you
the truth, I never thought about that.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
You don't wanting singing and I wanna out singing anybody
just to I all everything, I all everything I've tried
tried to do.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I always.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Uh try to do it, do a good job of it, right,
So but uh I I never But but my baseball
I wanted.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Uh. I did want out to do everybody I wanted.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I wanted to be the greatest baseball player that ever
put on the NY farm. But uh, I'm just glad
that I was given the voice by the Lord Mighty
to be able to sing.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
And so that's what I try to do. Still. I
try to sing. My fans think I'm singing better.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Not not every day, So I'm blessed there too. You
know that my voice is still there and my fans
like to still come see me now.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
What a great entertainer Charlie Pride. When I was growing up,
my dad had a Charlie Pride a track that we
used to listen to all the time. Charlie Pride Live
at Panther Hall anyway, one of the greatest entertainers ever
in the country music heck of a baseball player too,
And yeah he was part of the Texas Rangers organization
for many years. So we lost Charlie Pride in twenty twenty,

(04:36):
but again he was born on this day, March eighteenth,
in nineteen thirty four. Anyway, one of country music's greatest singers.
Mister Charlie Pride on Bob Pickett Radio podcast. Follow me
on Instagram, Pop Pickett Radio Instagram, check out those video
interviews Bob Pickett Radio on the YouTube channel, and we'll
see you on iHeartRadio stations, classic country stations all across

(04:57):
this US. Catch tomorrow with another episode a Bob Picket
Radio Podcast.