Consumer Guide Album

Charley Pride: The Best of Charley Pride Volume 2 [RCA Victor, 1972]
Says Paul Hemphill: "There might be something to the suspicion that he is Nashville's house nigger . . . if he didn't sing `Kawliga' better than Hank Williams did." Wrong. First you sing real good, and then maybe they let you be a house nigger. Pride's amazing baritone--it hints at twang and melisma simultaneously, and to call it warm is to slight the brightness of its heat--loses focus as he settles exclusively into "heart songs." Though these tales of married love are worthy enough, only "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone" ranks with "Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger" or "Just Between You and Me" or "All I Have to Offer You," while "I'm Just Me" asserts an "identity" so vague it couldn't get him a tricycle license. In however irrelevant a way, "Kaw-Liga" at least acknowledged the existence of race, and "The Snakes Crawl at Night" at least cast him as a criminal. Neither was much to retreat from. But they helped round out a persona that's beginning to seem dangerously shallow. B