In 1953, he signed a contract with the Boise Yankees, the Class C farm team of the New York Yankees. In 1952, he pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. Though he loved music, one of Pride's lifelong dreams was to become a professional baseball player.

When Pride was 14, his mother purchased him his first guitar and he taught himself to play. His elder brother, Mack Pride, played Negro league baseball before entering the ministry. Eight boys and three girls were in the family. His father intended to name him Charl Frank Pride, but owing to a clerical error on his birth certificate, his legal name was Charley Frank Pride. Pride was born on March 18, 1934, in Sledge, Mississippi, the fourth of eleven children of poor sharecroppers. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Pride is one of three African-American members of the Grand Ole Opry (the others being DeFord Bailey and Darius Rucker). He won the Entertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971 and was awarded a Grammy for 'Best Country Vocal Performance, Male' in 1972. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records except for Elvis Presley. Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and professional baseball player.

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