Singer Charley Pride has the distinction of being the only African-American musician to make his career entirely in the field of country music, a musical genre dominated by white performers. His string of hits that began in the mid-1960s and continued for more than 18 years broke the color line in country music, even if no other black performers have followed Pride's lead. Pride's smooth voice and country-pop sound carried him to success despite his record company's initial fears that he would not be accepted by the country music establishment, or its fans, because of his race.

Charley Pride

Born in 1938 to a sharecropping family on a cotton farm in Sledge, Mississippi, Pride crossed racial lines early in life, preferring to listen to white country music rather than delta blues or other black musical forms. He bought his first guitar from the Sears Roebuck...