Even before Pride had his first session at RCA in late 1965, Dorman had already earned his initial success with a pop/rock song he wrote called “Mountain Of Love.” Harold’s own version went to #21 on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart in 1960 and Johnny Rivers traveled to #9 when he remade it in 1964. After Charley recorded “Mississippi Cotton Pickin’ Delta Town” a decade later, he incorporated both songs into his stage show, demonstrating how a creative writer can often work effectively with different kinds of material. Whenever Pride would launch into “Mountain Of Love” on stage, the audience went wild. His producer at the time, Norro Wilson, was touring with Charley and took notice of the crowd’s strong reaction to the song. He suggested they go in and cut it.
With “Mountain Of Love,” Pride added to his lengthy list of old songs that became hits for him. A live rendition of Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga,” two more Williams tunes he remade for his 1980 album “There’s A Little Bit Of Hank In Me,” (“Honky Tonk Blues” and “You Win Again”), re-workings of George Jones’ “Why Baby Why” and Webb Pierce’s “More And More” (from 1983’s “Country Classics” LP) and a version of Jim Reeves’ 1960 hit “I Know One” (written by Charley’s former producer Jack Clement) all scored well for Pride on the Billboard chart. Additionally, Felice Bryant’s “We Could,” (a song most-associated with Little Jimmy Dickens’ early career and performed by many other artists throughout the 1950s, but strangely had never been a hit for anybody) went to #3 for Charley in 1974.
“Mountain Of Love” became the 26th of his 29 number one hits on Billboard’s country singles chart March 20, 1982. Just two weeks later, Pride followed it up with his release of Kent Robbins’ bouncy “I Don’t Think She’s In Love Anymore,” which stalled at #2 in July.
A few weeks later, Charley experienced a more-serious near-miss. On August 2, 1982, a Cessna airplane hit the tail section of his 16-passenger Fairchild Turboprop in Texas. All the passengers in the smaller Cessna plane were killed, while Pride’s pilot, Robert Sowers, brought the Fairchild in for a bumpy but safe landing. Just six hours later, Charley was on stage performing at a benefit concert.
