Garth Brooks To Join RIAA In Honoring Charley Pride With Lifetime Achievement Award

Garth Brooks is set to join the Recording Industry Association of America in honoring late country music legend Charley Pride with the RIAA’s lifetime achievement award.

The event will take place at the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 25. Pride’s son Dion will accept the honor on behalf of his late father.

“Sometimes the greatest honor you can receive is being part of honoring someone else – this is an honor,” Brooks said in a statement.

In September 2020, just months before his death in December, Pride collaborated with Brooks on the duet “Where the Cross Don’t Burn,” written by Troy Jones and Phil Thomas.

Pride witnessed great success in the early to mid-1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career, he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to No. 1. He won the Entertainer of the Year award at the CMA Awards in 1971.

Pride also is one of three African-American members of the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He also received the pioneer award from the Academy of Country Music in 1993. He also received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2017 and a lifetime achievement award from the Country Music Association in November 2020, just one month before his death.

(Photo: Joseph Llanes)