After years of trying to see out his Major League Baseball dreams, Pride turned his attention to country music. His groundbreaking run with RCA Records began with the 1966 single “Snakes Crawl at Night” and proved itself permanent when “All I Have to Offer You (is Me)” topped the country charts in 1969.
By the end of the ’70s, Pride was a three-time Grammy award winner, his label’s best-selling performer since Elvis Presley and a former CMA Entertainer of the Year and two-time Male Vocalist of the Year.
In 1993, Pride became the second African-American member of the Grand Ole Opry. As of July 2020, early Opry star and harmonica player DeFord Bailey and contemporary artist Darius Rucker are the only other Black men to join the Nashville-based show’s cast.
Pride’s long list of hit country songs earned him a spot in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
