Charley Pride, who broke color barriers as country music's first Black superstar, reigning CMA and ACM Group of the Year Old Dominion, and two-time GRAMMY-winning songwriter Liz Rose were all inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame on Tuesday, November 11, 2025.
"These inductees represent the heart of Nashville's music story," said Ellen Pryor on behalf of Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, the sponsor of the Music City Walk of Fame. "From Old Dominion's rise from songwriters to stars, to Charley Pride’s trailblazing legacy, to Liz Rose's timeless storytelling that defined an era — each has left an unforgettable mark on music and on Nashville."
Pride passed away on December 12, 2020 and was inducted posthumously with his widow, Rozene Pride, on-hand to accept the honor. Multi-platinum country artist Neal McCoy, who considered Charley his mentor, was also on hand to entertain the crowd with stories while honoring Pride's legacy.
To view a few pictures from the event please visit Charley's official facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/charleypride.
For more information about the Music City Walk of Fame, go to https://visitmusiccity.com/walkoffame.
In the mid-1980s, when Charley Pride was in between record contracts, he went into a Dallas studio with an all-star cast of area musicians to record a series of songs by Brook Benton. He intended to turn the project into a tribute album to the R&B mainstay and “Rainy Night in Georgia” singer...
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Please "Think Twice" and cast aside any narrow-minded musical expectations about the late, legendary Charley Pride. The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, GRAMMY® "Lifetime Achievement Award" recipient, three-time GRAMMY® award winner and former Country Music Association "Entertainer of the Year" left a stunning R&B nugget in his cache of unreleased recordings.
Originally recorded in Dallas, TX during a brief mid-1980s interlude between his country music recording deals, Pride’s forthcoming, posthumous album release, ENDLESSLY: A TRIBUTE TO BROOK BENTON, features a delightful set of R&B productions that sound quite different from his mainstream 1970s / 1980s country music recordings.
The unexpected sonic departure is due in no small part to Pride’s co-producer, the late veteran audio engineer/producer Bob Pickering (Nitzinger, Thunder, Willie Nelson, Bloodrock), and the impressive array of world-class, Texas-based musicians enlisted to back Pride, including legendary bassist Chuck Rainey (Steely Dan, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones), drummer/percussionist Gene Glover (Ricardo Arjona), jazz pianist Fred Crane (Al Belletto, Johnnie Mercer, Al Hirt, Doc Severinsen), guitarist Jerry Matheny (LeAnn Rimes) and Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame inductee Billy Briggs Jr. (Bob Wills) on sax.
Of course, nothing conveys "vintage recording" better than timeless orchestral strings. So, Pickering also charted some lush string arrangements for the project which were tracked by a first-rate ensemble of strings led by the late violinist, conductor and music educator Anshel Brusilow (Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia).
Rediscovered in recent years at Pride’s CECCA Productions office, the original 1980s multi-track masters were mixed and mastered under Bob Pickering’s supervision following Pride’s death. Other than digitally transferring, mixing and mastering the original performances, virtually no other post-production has been applied–no instrumentation has been added and no trendy artificial intelligence has been used to modify or enhance the vocals or recordings in any way.
In addition to his own repertoire of legendary hits, Pride’’s body of work often featured "covers" of songs that were originally popularized by other artists. A new retrospective, COVER STORY, collects twenty-two (22) such songs that Charley recorded between 1990 and 2020 including (8) recordings that are enjoying their first official release in North America and two (2) previously unreleased recordings – "Ring of Fire" and "Heartaches by the Number."
"Ring of Fire" is, of course, Johnny Cash’s ubiquitous 1963 classic that is generally considered to be one of the greatest country songs of all time. Rediscovered in Pride’s Dallas studio archives on a 2 inch multi-track reel simply marked "R.I.N.G", the recording was originally committed to tape in September 1992 but only recently mixed and finalized under the supervision of Pride’s most recent creative partner, artist/songwriter/producer Billy Yates.
Legendary songwriter Harlan Howard’s "Heartaches by the Number" was originally made famous by Ray Price (a #2 country hit) and Guy Mitchell (a #1 pop hit) in the late 1950s. The recording presented on COVER STORY represents Charley’s only known studio version. More excitingly, it is the first recording to surface from Pride’s final January 2020 studio sessions with Yates. During his later years, Pride often liked to kick off new studio sessions with a favorite classic country song to warm up his voice, build rapport with the studio musicians and set the tone for the rest of the sessions. "Heartaches by the Number" fulfilled that role during those final 2020 recording sessions.
COVER STORY debuts at digital music outlets worldwide on June 20, 2025.
The 2003 studio album, COMFORT OF HER WINGS, reunited Charley Pride with legendary artist/producer Jack Clement, Pride’s primary creative partner during his first decade of recording country hits. The album also reunited Pride with the award-winning songwriting of Ben Peters on the album tracks "I Need Somebody Bad" and "Plenty Good Lovin'" — Peters had previously penned such Pride hits as "Kiss an Angel Good Morning," "Burgers and Fries" and "You're So Good When You're Bad”. Additionally, the song "Field of Dreams" features a vocal collaboration with Janie Fricke, a former Country Music Association “Female Vocalist of the Year” and a perennial country music fan favorite.
This Expanded Edition adds three (3) live renditions of songs from the album (“Chain of Love”, “I Need Somebody Bad” and “Comfort of Her Wings”) recorded during Pride’s 2005 Canadian tour and features the previously unreleased “Ready for the Ride”, a Hans Theessink penned outtake from the original album recording sessions. Theesink, a Dutch multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter is renowned for performing a Delta blues style of roots music and recently celebrated two of his other songs being covered on Bill Wyman’s 2024 studio release.
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