Country icon Charley Pride dies of COVID-19
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Country music legend Charley Pride, widely considered the genre’s first Black superstar, died Saturday after contracting COVID-19, according to multiple reports. He was 86.
Pride died in Dallas, KTVT reported, citing the musician’s representative.
Last month, Pride was awarded the 2020 Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Annual CMA Awards. During the award ceremony, he performed “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” alongside fellow country musician Jimmie Allen.
“Charley Pride is the epitome of a trailblazer,” CMA Chief Executive Officer Sarah Trahern said earlier this year. “Few other artists have grown Country Music’s rich heritage and led to the advancement of Country Music around the world like Charley. His distinctive voice has created a timeless legacy that continues to echo through the Country community today.”
In a career that launched in the 1960s and lasted more than five decades, Pride saw dozens of his songs hit the top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. He was known for tunes including “Mountain of Love” and “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?” and considered himself to be “a very fortunate entertainer” for having several “signature songs,” according to officials with the Grand Ole Opry.
“I’m fortunate enough to have about four or five,” he said. “If I leave one or two out of my show, I’m going to hear something about it before the night’s over.”
Pride was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 and inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He won three Grammy Awards for his 1971 Gospel album “Did you Think to Pray,” his 1971 single “Let Me Live” and his 1971 album “Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs.” In 2017, The Recording Academy awarded him with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Pride is survived by his wife, Rozene, two sons and a daughter, according to Variety.

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FILE – In this Dec. 21, 1987, file photo, Eastside High School Principal Joe Clark is pictured at a rally by student supporters in Paterson, N.J. Clark, the baseball bat and bullhorn-wielding principal whose unwavering commitment to his students and uncompromising disciplinary methods inspired the 1989 film “Lean on Me,” died at his Florida home on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, after a long battle with an unspecified illness, his family said in statement. He was 82. (AP Photo/Peter Cannata, File)

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Country music legend Charley Pride died on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, of complications related to COVID-19. He was 86.

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FILE – In this file photo dated Saturday, May 26, 2007, actor David Prowse, who was the man in the black Darth Vader suit in the first Star Wars film, signs autographs at Star Wars Celebration IV, marking the 30th anniversary of the release of the first film in the Star Wars saga, in Los Angeles, USA. The British actor, Prowse who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged 85 on Saturday, according to an announcement by his agent Sunday Nov. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, FILE)

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Actor Brian Dennehy accepts a Tony Award for best actor in a play for "Long Day’s Journey into Night" during the 57th Annual Tony Awards on June 8, 2003. Dennehy died of natural causes on Wednesday, April 15, 2020. He was 81.

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Clive Cussler, noted for adventure novels, died Feb. 24. He was 88.

Chitetsu Watanabe, of Niigata, died Feb. 23, 2020, less than two weeks after Guinness World Records confirmed that the 112-year-old was the oldest man alive.

FILE PHOTO: Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak died at the age of 91.

FILE PHOTO: NASA space scientist, and mathematician Katherine Johnson poses for a portrait at work at NASA Langley Research Center in 1966 in Hampton, Virginia.

Barbara "B." Smith, a former model and restaurateur, died Feb. 22. She was 70.

Daredevil "Mad Mike" Hughes was killed Feb. 22 during a launch of a homemade rocket gone wrong, He was 64.

Rapper Pop Smoke, born Bashar Barakah Jackson, died in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020. He was 20 years old.

Ja’Net DuBois, who starred in the 1970s sitcom "Good Times," died Feb. 18, She was 74.

Kellye Nakahara, known for her role in the TV show "M*A*S*H," died Feb. 16. She was 72.

Golf legend Mickey Wright, who won 82 LPGA events and 13 major championships, died Feb. 17. She was 85.

Tony Fernandez, a five-time All-Star shortstop who played 17 years in the major leagues, died Feb. 15. He was 57.

Caroline Flack, the former host of the hit British reality show "Love Island," died Feb. 15, according to her family. She was 40.

Actor Raphael Coleman, a child star in the "Nanny McPhee" film, died Feb. 7. He was 25.

FILE PHOTO: Actor Robert Conrad, best known for his role as Secret Service agent James T. West in “The Wild Wild West” television show, has died. He was 84.

Actor Orson Bean attends the premiere of Columbia Picture’s ‘The Equalizer 2’ at TCL Chinese Theatre on July 17, 2018, in Hollywood, California.

Actor Kirk Douglas attends the last 70mm film screening of "Spartacus" at AMPAS Samuel Goldwyn Theater on August 13, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. Douglas died at the age of 103 in February, 2020 (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

Mary Higgins Clark, one of the world’s most popular writers, died Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. She was 92.

Actress Marj Dusay, a veteran actress in five different soap opera series, died Jan. 28. She was 83.

Anne Cox Chambers, former owner of WSB-TV and Atlanta philanthropist, dies at age 100

Kobe Bryant speaks to the media at a press conference before his #8 and #24 jerseys are retired by the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center on December 18, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020.

FILE PHOTO: PBS’s Jim Lehrer has died at the age of 85.

FILE PHOTO: Terry Jones attends a press conference ahead of their upcoming tour at the O2 Arena Monty Python Live at the London Palladium on June 30, 2014 in London, England.

Singer-songwriter David Olney died while performing at a Florida Festival on Jan. 18. He was 71.

Writer, actor and director Buck Henry, best known as the screenwriter of “The Graduate,” died Jan. 8, 2020. He was 89.

FILE PHOTO: Controversial UK Author Elizabeth Wurtzel who wrote ‘Prozac Nation’ died Jan. 7 at the age of 52.

In this March 1956 file photo, New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen poses for a photo during baseball spring training in St. Petersburg, Fla. Larsen, the journeyman pitcher who reached the heights of baseball glory in 1956 for the Yankees when he threw a perfect game and the only no-hitter in World Series history, died Jan. 1, 2020. He was 90.

Nick Gordon, the former boyfriend of Bobbi Kristina Brown, died Jan. 1 at age 30, according to multiple news outlets.

David Stern, who spent 30 years as the NBA’s longest-serving commissioner and oversaw its growth into a global power, died on Jan. 1, 2020. He was 77.
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