Whoopi for Charley
Charley Pride found a new fan in Oscar-winning actress Whoopi
Goldberg, the night he accepted the National Academy of Recording
Arts & Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Grammy, July 11, at New York
City’s Beacon Theatre. As The View host, Whoopi opened her July
12 telecast with a cheery “Good morning, Charley Pride!,” saying he
watches the ABC show. She and Charley have seen one another on
various occasions, but never really spoke until New York:
“It was great to finally get to meet him after 30 years! I met him
last night at the Grammy Legends ceremony. When you think about
country music, he was the only man of colour doing country music,
followed next by Darius Rucker (of Hootie & The Blowfish), who has
won a country Grammy. It’s kind of extraordinary and it’s an area of
music that people don’t realise is very connected to people of colour,
because it’s country music and we all came from that country… I have
not seen a ‘Sister’ doing country music.”
Last December, Charley celebrated his 50th year of Billboard
chartings, his first Top 10 being 1966’s Just Betwe en You And Me,
followed by 51 more Top 10s, 29 of which became #1 singles, earning
three Grammys and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame
(2000). Ray Charles, of course, enjoyed a Top 10 duet with George
Jones We Didn’t See A Thing, and a #1 Seven Spanish Angels with Willie
Nelson, as well as adapting country classics to fit his R&B style earlier,
scoring hits such as I Can’t Stop Loving You, You Are My Sunshine and
Crying Time.
Less successful were Big Al Downing, Stoney Edwards, O.B.
McClinton and Cleve Francis, who came, garnered some media
attention, then quietly disappeared. ‘Sisters’ who made attempts in the
genre, included Shirley B. Adair, briefly signed to ABC-Paramount,
and Ruby Falls, who co-wrote her only Top 40 single You’ve Got To
Mend This Heartache (1977), but died at age 40 of a brain haemorrhage
in 1986. The Pointer Sisters’ saw their composition Fairytale hit Top
40 (#13 pop), earning them a 1974 Grammy.
Lacy J giving back the community at large. Actually, such programs country music...
Singer Lacy J. Dalton (16th Avenue) is one artist have been launched at several state prisons with For these people,
who believes in giving back when you’ve gained further funding from the National Endowment For the being able to make
success, and now does so via California’s Arts in Arts (though Trump has called for NEA defunding), a positive out of a
Connection program. From September to June, she California Arts Council and some private foundations. negative situation,
and bandleader Dale Poune participate in teaching Dalton, whose country hits include several she as they have done,
songwriting, rap and guitar to interested inmates at co-wrote herself, such as Hillbilly Girl With The Blues, is very meaningful...
High Desert State Prison in Susanville. This project Takin’ It Easy and Everybody Makes Mistakes (which They have made
is co-sponsored by the non-profits William James sort of represents her feeling here), insists that their mistakes, and
Association (in her hometown of Santa Cruz), and they teach more than country-style music: “Much are paying the price
the California Lawyers For the Arts, as part of a of what has been written in the past two years that for what they have done, but it doesn’t have to end
$65,000 project to benefit incarcerated persons and we have established the program, is far away from there. It shouldn’t end there.”
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