Charley Pride sings

Press, 3 April 1989, Page 8

Charley Pride sings

Charley Pride at the Christchurch Town Hall last evening. Reviewed by Anabright Hay.

It was a far livelier crowd that left the town hall at 11.30 last evening than went in three hours earlier.

The transformation was largely the work of Charley Pride and the Pridesmen. The show got off to a slow, mellow start with “Mountain of Love," the crowd progessively warming as each Pride classic was greeted with applause. By the start of “I Don’t Think She’s in Love Any More” the near-capacity audience was firmly under the spell of the Pride magic. It was not a difficult potion to take as Pride’s wonderful rich baritone poured out with no apparent effort. Clutching the microphone in his ringbedecked fingers, he caressed the music, his body arching and swaying as if he meant every word of it. While most of the audience appeared to be long-time fans, he spent much of the time between numbers establishing repartee with those lucky enough to be in front rows.

The middle bracket went up-tempo as a barrage of this best-loved classics were belted out, “Mississippi Cotton Picking Delta Town,” “Why Baby Why,” “Is anybody Going to San Antone” and “Kiss an Angel Good Morning.”

But it was not Pride’s show alone, nor was it a strictly country affair. The Pridesmen’s excellent musicianship was very much in evidence and not always in the background. Pride’s son, Dion, on lead guitar for most of the show, took the solo spot on keyboards to perform a creditable rendition of the Elton John mid-career song, “Don’t Let the Sun go Down on Me.” One of the backing vocalists, Neil McCoy, also took centre stage in the second half of the show with a powerful performance of the country ballad, “I’m Stuck on You.”

Pride provided vocal evidence of his versatility by performing beautifully modulated versions of Rock and Roll classics such as “Blueberry Hill” and Elvis’s “All Shook Up,” followed by “Six days on the Road,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Green, Green Grass of Home,” closing with “Those Old Cotton Fields Back Home.”

Even though Pride and the Pridesmen did not come on stage until 9.30 p.m.-. there could have been few who felt cheated of a great night’s entertainment. It was a pity compere Neil Collins took advantage of the good humour of a captive audience to open the show with a number of tedious, tasteless and unecessary jokes.