He's my earliest memory of a Rodeo Houston concert, would have been late 70's or early 80's. I love this story: As far back as 1966, when his Willie Nelson Show package tour stormed across South Texas and Louisiana, he added the young black country artist Charley Pride to the bill. At Dewey Groom’s segregated Longhorn Ballroom, in Dallas, “Dewey didn’t want Charley on the bandstand,” Willie later recalled. “So I got up onstage and introduced Charley . . . I laid a big kiss on him, right on the mouth. Then he started singing, and they loved it.” The color barrier was broken; in fact, later that night, after a rowdy guitar pull in his motel room, Willie “wished I would’ve had a camera. Charley Pride and Dewey Groom had both passed out on the same bed.”
RIP. 'Saw' him in concert around 1980 in the Astrodome during the Rodeo. I say 'saw' because I was 6 or 7 and everyone was standing up. Met him at the first Buccees, he gave me and my friends a tour of his tour bus. Nice guy.
Fun Fact: he pitched in the Negro League and had several tryouts with MLB teams, until injuries made him focus on music. He was a very small minority shareholder in the Texas Rangers and used to go workout with the team at Spring Training. I would also like to add that the misspelling of his name in the thread title is annoying
When I lived in Huntsville as a kid I recall him playing at the prison rodeo..fun times, more simpler times ...RIP Charley
Is that his best song? Can't currently think of a better one. Funny thing too, listened to the album version and live versions, young and old, and I can't really tell the difference. Dude had a classic voice. Also, this could go in the "cover songs" thread: I do love Jerry Jeff's version where he changes the chorus to "anyplace is alright as long as I don't have to go to Waco"
