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Wait, Wait...

Apr 1, 2017
1 min read

​Host Peter Sagal's contestant on the "Not My Job" segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is country music legend Charley Pride.  The interview is a bit perfunctory, but his story is pretty interesting (not only being in the country music Hall of Fame, but also a very good baseball player who came close to making the major leagues.  However, once they get to the question part -- it goes wildly off the rails, and gets pretty amusing.


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By the way, Charley Pride is the point of my favorite line in the Statler Bros. wonderful song, "How to Be a Country Music Star."  In the song, they give "tips," the joke which is that they all are merely unique iconic descriptions of some of country music's greatest singers.  (For instance, for Willie Nelson, they sing, "Get a headband like Willie's.")  When it comes to Charley Pride, their "tip" is that you should "Get a gimmick like Charley Pride got."  Now, that line is meaningless if you don't know who Charley Pride is.  If you do, though, his "gimmick" is that he is a profound rarity in country music for being black.



Here's the song, which they premiered at an appreciative country music awards show --




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