Singing as a full-time job was not something I had given a lot of thought to and I had no clear notion of the money to be made in it.

There were no guarantees that country music, whose roots were in the South, were ready for Charley Pride.

I'm not James Brown. I'm not Sam Cooke. I'm Charley Pride. I'm just me and that's what you got.

Until MTV, television had not been a huge influence on music. To compete with MTV, the country music moguls felt they had to appeal to the same young audience and do it the way MTV did.

Fans are what make a performer and I've always taken them seriously.

I learned to tune a guitar by ear. That method has served me pretty well.

No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.