Maurice Hope – August 9, 2016 at 12:32PM
Tags:_AMERICANA
What, another twin-cd set from American country singer Charley Pride? To answer my own question it sure is; again you have four albums spread across the collection. Great value, and with Pride still at the peak of his career as he eased, effortlessly, through hard country and pop country tunes during the mid-1970s. The first two records are from 1975, and have Jerry Bradley (it used to be Jack Clement; although ‘Cowboy’ Jack does the honours on a handful spread across the two. Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Through the Night” among them) produce, and Bradley and Pride handle the producing duties on She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory (1977) and Someone Loves You Honey (1977). The Happiness Of Having You is loaded in feel-good songs from writers (Jerry Chestnut, Johnny Duncan, Ben Peters, Bobby Borchers, Mack Vickery, Kenny Dell and Jimmy Payne), even on those less happy Pride’s vocals have a bounce to it as he bounds through “The Happiness Of Having You”, “Oklahoma Morning”, “I’ve Got A Good Woman To lean On” and with him in ballad mode, Kristofferson’s much recorded “Help Me Make It Through The Night” earns yet another excellent cover.
Possessing strong Christian beliefs the four-lps include Pride’s album, Sunday Morning With Charley Pride and it is a good one too. Not least because it includes painstaking ballad “In Jesus’ Name I Pray” backed up with such stirring fare as “Brush Arbor Meeting”, “I Don’t Deserve A Mansion”, “Little Delta Church” and “The Next Year Finally Came”, plus moving ballad, “Without Mama Here”.
Loaded in wonderful pedal steel, piano and fiddle Pride has rarely sounded better as he does the work of all songwriters proud. She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory sees Pride become slicker, the music less soulful as he tried to keep attuned to the changes taking place in country music and there was a few. It was the time of the Urban Cowboy, and when you had smooth sounding his from Conway Twitty, Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers (“Lucille”) and Glen Campbell with “Southern Nights”. His uplifting spirit is heard in all its glory on “A Whole Lot Of Things To Sing About”, “Get Off Your Good Intentions”, and with hints of Bobby Goldsboro “I Feel The Country Callin’ Me” coupled with killer ballad “I’ll Be Leaving Alone” and gentle ode “Country Music” ensure his light shines as bright as it ever has.
On treading a path coloured in both traditional country based and more country cross-over material Someone Loves You Honey sees Pride’s music become even slicker, the productions leaning more to modern radio driven mainstream fare of the 1970s. More and more predictable, and not necessarily in a good way the music of Charley Pride was losing its edge. Although the record did contain “More To Me” and the excellent “Days Of Our Lives” and breezy covers of “Daydreams About Night Things” and “Play, Guitar Play” (the latter were chart toppers for Ronnie Milsap and Conway Twitty respectively) among other well performed tracks.
Maurice Hope
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