[1] The period of his greatest musical success was from around 1969 to 1975, when he was the top-selling artist for RCA Records, outselling even Elvis Presley and John Denver.

During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one.

Songs such as "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)", "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone", and "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", among others, typified the "countrypolitan" style that made him famous and became crossover-pop hits.

During that season, an injury caused him to lose the "mustard" on his fastball, and he was sent to the Yankees' Class D team in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Later that season, while in the Negro leagues with the Louisville Clippers, two players – Pride and Jesse Mitchell – were traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a team bus.

[9] Pride played three games for the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League[10] (a farm club of the Cincinnati Reds) in 1960,[11] and had tryouts with the California Angels (1961) and the New York Mets (1962) organizations, but was not picked up by either team.

[10] The lead smelter kept 18 jobs open specifically for baseball players, and arranged their shifts so they could play as a team.

He also played gigs in the local area, both solo and with a band called the Night Hawks,[11] and Asarco asked him to sing at company picnics.

He routinely unloaded coal from railroad cars, shoveling it into a 2,400 °F (1,300 °C) furnace while keeping clear of slag, a task that frequently gave him burns.

He moved his wife and son to join him and they lived in Helena until 1967, purchasing their first home there, and with their children Dion and Angela being born at the local hospital.

[11] In a 1967 interview with the Helena Independent Record, his wife Rozene Pride commented that the family encountered minor racism in Montana, citing an incident where they were refused service in a restaurant and another time when a realtor refused to show them a home, but she felt that the family endured less racism than she saw leveled against local Native American people, whose treatment she compared to that given to black people in the South.

[13] He performed his music solo at clubs and with a four-piece combo called the Night Hawks during the time he lived in Montana.

[10] His break came when Jack Clement produced a demo for Pride, and played it for RCA Records executive Chet Atkins, the longtime producer at RCA who had made stars out of country singers such as Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis, and others, who offered Pride a recording contract in 1965.

On the records of this song submitted to radio stations for airplay, the singer was listed as "Country Charley Pride".

Pride disputes that the omission of a photo was deliberate; he stated that getting promoters to bring in a Black country singer was a bigger problem: "People didn't care if I was pink.

"[10] While living in Montana, he continued to sing at local clubs, and in Great Falls had an additional boost to his career when he befriended local businessman Louis Allen "Al" Donohue, who owned radio stations, including KMON, the first stations to play Pride's records in Montana.

[16] "Pride's amazing baritone – it hints at twang and melisma simultaneously, and to call it warm is to slight the brightness of its heat" The success of "Just Between You and Me" was enormous.

In the late summer of 1966, on the strength of his early releases, he was booked for his first large show, in Detroit's Olympia Stadium.

Since no biographical information had been included with those singles, few of the 10,000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was Black and discovered the fact only when he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silence.

"[18] The show became the first of a long and active career playing to large audiences, his race soon becoming a minor detail compared to his success.

The pop success of these songs reflected the country/pop crossover sound that was reaching country music in the 1960s and early 1970s, known as "Countrypolitan".

[23] In 1971, Pride released what would become his biggest hit, "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", a million-selling crossover single.

Pride played the concert in November 1976, with his album song "Crystal Chandeliers" subsequently being released as a single in the UK and Ireland.

[31] He also performed the national anthem at Super Bowl VIII and again at game five of the 2010 World Series, accompanied both years by the Del Rio High School JROTC Color Guard.

Pride spoke with John Seigenthaler on Nashville Public Television about the book and his childhood in Mississippi, the impacts of racism throughout his career, and his battle with depression.

[11] In the late 1970s, Pride had an extramarital affair with an unmarried Dallas flight attendant, and in 1979, she gave birth to a son, Tyler.

He returned to the site in February 2009 for a routine checkup and surprised the Arkansas Senate with an unplanned performance of five songs.