Charlie Pride dies at age 86.

Of course, in this era, as we'd expect, he died of complications from COVID 19.

I'm not a huge country music fan, but Charlie Pride was a class act.  He was not only a great artist, but he reflected the fact the fact that the balkanization of American music is really an artificial recording industry thing, not a natural thing. Before music was recorded, it blended pretty well. And as late as the 60s and 70s, before music became completely artificial, it still did.

Pride reflected proudly on the best of us.  He had been a baseball player in the "Negro" leagues before they were integrated and went on to bring integration to a Country Music industry which had been solidly, and artificially, white since the recording industry created race based record classifications. His passing at this time is not only a loss, but seems out of time in that it reminds us of a time in which we seemed to be better than we currently are.