Charley Pride: We had to milk cows and pull weeds for the hogs and things before we ever went to school. We used to sleep three and four to a bed. I used to wake up many a morning with toes sticking up my nose. In some instance, Nick, it wasn’t really so bad, even with the segregation and the upbringing and all that sort of thing, but we made it, you know.
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NS: Yeah I notice sometimes retrospectively you sing that old “Cotton Fields” song, and it kind of, I guess in a way, refers to those days.
CP: Yeah, sort of. Of course, I won a lot of contests imitating chickens and roosters and gobblers and hens.
NS: Oh Charley, now you don’t still do that, do you?
CP: Yeah watch. [imitates turkey]. A turkey gobbler.
NS: Oh yeah!
CP: I used to–I got the lanyard [imitates barnyard animals].
NS: Oh man, I love it. So what was the music around you and your family in Sledge?
CP: The Philco radio. My dad ran the knobs on it, which was, you know, Saturday nights was the Grand Ole Opry. People ask a lot of times, you know, did I listen to any other music? I do believe that there’s three basic ingredients in American music, and that’s country, gospel and the blues. That’s where it all started, see American wasn’t built on Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
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NS: At what point, in your own mind, do you think you said to yourself, “You know, not only do I hear that music and I like that music, but I’m gonna play that music”?
CP: About the time I could learn the lyric. I got a lot of criticism from a lot of people and laughs and all that stuff. My older sister used to say, “Why you singing their music?” And I said, “Well, it’s not their music, it’s mine too.” People say, “Well, weren’t you nervous?” And I said, “Yes, I was nervous,” but the thing is, I’ve always been an American, you see, in my own heart and mind. So no matter what anybody else would tell me or didn’t treat me that way, that was their problem.
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NS: Before you were known as a country singer, you did some work up in Montana. Tell me about going up to that north country.
CP: Well, I went up there to play baseball. I played in the old Negro American League for about five, six years.
NS: What position did you play?
CP: Pitch and outfield. See, I was kind of the next Babe Ruth, I mean, I was gonna be better, rather. And they said, “Who hit the most home runs?” Not Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, not Ted Williams. Charley Pride. That was my intention, but it didn’t work out that way. We played in New Orleans, LA, right where you are now, and that was at Pelican Stadium.
NS: Yeah, did you play music in any of these ballparks or perform?
CP: No, but we would go to a club or something and some of the guys said, “Well he sings pretty good, get him up on stage,” and I get up on stage and sing, and some of the guys that I play with would say “Man, you ought to go into singing, you‘ve got a pretty good voice.” And I said, “Yeah, but I want go to major league and break all them records and set new ones by the time I’m thirty five or six, then I’ll go sing.”
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