00:00When Jackie Robinson went to the Major Leagues, I was picking cotton beside my dad and I said to myself, here's my way out of the cotton field.
00:11Playing in the Negro Leagues, the guys heard my voice and they said, man, you make a lot of money singing, you sing pretty good.
00:16They say that time will heal all wounds and vice and men.
00:23As a little boy, Charlie Pryde learned the language of country music.
00:28He didn't take any classes in this. There weren't any. He was like, I'm going to be a country singer and I belong here.
00:42No person of color had ever done what he was doing.
00:46There were a lot more obstacles in front of Mr. Pryde's dream. You had to want to get there and you had to go for it.
00:52If I can get in front of him, he don't care nothing about no pigmentation.
00:56Charlie was a fighter for one. He's not afraid to kind of do things his own way, kind of be a trailblazer.
01:02Kiss an angel, good morning.
01:05And hover like the devil when you get back home.
01:09It was just a novelty, you know, to have a black man singing country music.
01:13And the fact that he sang it so much better than so many of the good country artists were at the time.
01:19All the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings on the wall.
01:26He was the biggest selling RCA artist next to Elvis in history.
01:31Who is Charlie Pryde? What do you want?
01:33Charlie deserves every accolade he can get.
01:36We'll make up some new ones if we need to.
01:38I'm just me.
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