He was born George Louis Pride, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Pride grew up on Chicago's north side and attended the First Baptist Church, where the pastor was Nat King Cole's father.
After service in the United States Army, Pride met and married a female singer and they settled in El Paso, Texas. They performed as a singing duo before, after seeing B.B. King perform live, Pride concentrated his singing future around the blues and soul music genres. Pride recorded his first two singles in the early 1970s. These were "I'm Com'un Home In The Morn'un" (1972) and "Your Love Is Fading," the latter released by Suemi Records. After relocating to New Mexico, he recorded sporadically whilst constantly performing in blues clubs and at festivals on the chitlin' circuit. Other tracks of his that were released over this period included "Look Out on Love," "We're Only Fooling Ourselves," "You've Got to Work for Love," and "Been Such a Long Time." Pride's debut album was entitled, Very Special (1979), which was released by Black Gold Entertainment. Several singles were issued before Gone Bad for a Very Special Reason (1988) was released, which had an almost an identical playlist to his debut effort.
Returning to Chicago, he became acquainted with Curtis Mayfield, which saw Gone Bad Again (1990) being issued. However, Pride's recordings remained second place to performing live. The WMB Records release, Love at Last (1995), contained re-recordings of several of Pride's earlier cuts. His 1997 Ichiban release was Twisting the Knife, followed by I Won't Give Up (2000). Pride signed a recording contract with Severn Records in 2002, which preceded his first release for them, Words of Caution. His early 1970s recordings were collected on the compilation album, The Memphis/El Paso Sessions 1970-1973, which Severn issued in June 2003. Allmusic noted that the collection "remains a treasure trove of previously obscure soul music that spotlights one of the many great singers almost lost to history."
In 2004, Pride undertook a brief tour in the UK. Alongside Darrell Nulisch, Pride was also the headline act at the Severn Records Soul and Blues Revue, in Chicago, in 2006. Snippets of his composition, "Bringin' Me Back Home," were used in the 2007 film, Feast of Love. Pride's appearance at the Severn Soul Review in 2010 was a significant comeback. He had been booked to appear in 2004, but he had had a heart attack before he could perform.Following a period of ill health, Pride died in Chicago in June 2012 of natural causes. He was aged 68. (wikipedia)
10 comments:
Really special release!
New one for me. Which means, I'll probably really like it. Thanks, KC!
Nice post, KC. Until I read it, I didn't even realize that Lou Pride has passed away. I somehow missed the obit. RIP
Such a rarity..Thank you
As with so much of the southern soul and rhythm and blues artists posted here, this artist is a discovery for me and I would not have heard of him or his music if you were not laboring in this country's only Caribbean city to generously share your extensive collection with us. In Boston, we were much more likely to hear northern soul, Motown, Caribbean music, jazz, reggae, and the major blues artists when I was a lad so this blog is a treasure trove that opens my eyes to great music and insightful comments by those who are far more astute and knowledgeable than I, my ears to great melodies and rhythms, while compelling my feet to tap in a tempo which is the closest I, a stiff Irish-American buachaill, can approximate to having a sense of rhythm and time. Fortunately I have always been self-conscious and considerate enough to spare the public from being exposed to the horror of my trying to bust some moves. But in the confines of my humble hovel, after the family has gone to bed, the floor silently bears the burden of my physical and almost primal reaction to the genius of artists like Pride.
I apologize for the lack of comments since my Chatterbox communication with Pres; however, my overworked and long-suffering hard drive expired from sheer exhaustion and, being of modest and limited means, I had to save to replace it. Fortunately I had moved most of my music files to my two external hard drives but I only have a terabyte of storage left on them and need to buy a third. Regrettably, seven hundred files, or more accurately albums, which I had planned to listen to before I moved them, may be lost. I am fervently hoping that one of my daughter's computer-savvy friends can perform miracles and retrieve them I suppose sacrifices may be in order to appease the music gods and ensure luck with the new and much smaller hard drive but until now I can only think of offering my 8-track tapes and suspect they may be as useless to the gods as they are to me.
I have enjoyed greatly the African posts. Muito obrigado for the Angolan music. I love music from Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, and Guinea-Bissau, and burned both albums to ensure that I have the music if another crash occurs. Likewise, many thanks for the Thomas Mapfumo post. I did not have the album in my Mapfumo collection and am grateful to be able to add it.
I readily acknowledge that it must be intensely frustrating to expend the time and effort to maintain this blog and receive such an anemic response, or lack thereof, from many anonymous downloaders while the grateful few write their appreciation and response to the music. Like Gus and others of the faithful few, I appreciate this blog and its contributors much more than I can articulate in my comments. It is my weekly mojo and allows me to travel to so many places in my mind and I freely admit that I envision Unky Cliff as some omniscient, all-wise muse of mystical form who smiles serenely at the work of le Roi, Poppa, Lazz, Gus, Pres, Lurker, and all who contribute their acumen and collections here. When I see their names on other blogs I visit, I almost feel as if I know them through their musical tastes. As a confirmed Luddite, I eschew social websites and their ersatz communities but this blog's devout few constitute a real community of manically devoted and passionate comrades, inspired by love of the muses and exceedingly generous, to whom I owe a great deal for enriching my appreciation and knowledge of music. So thanks for being the originator and manager of it all, le Roi. I hope I have conveyed in my prolixity how much of a loss it would be if frustration caused you to leave it all to our memory of and wistful longing for the return of this truly unique blog and its eclectic group of contributors. Please keep on keeping on.
Again simply damn good! Thanks KC.
Let me say KC...if that one eloquent Irish FOB comment doesn't keep this blog open forever ...I'll eat my guitars ( I have 7 ...3 Strats...a Les Paul and others) ...We're a cult ! LOL ! You can stop when you get my obituary...This blog actually has emotion as well as content...and sad but true...small is beautiful..you only have to look at world politics !!! ....I should post more...I know...but keeping up with all this fab music is brain damage ...we're all maniacs ! But cheers my friend FOB and another kiss on the arse for our Blues President of Chitlins ...Sir KC.... .
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I look forward to hearing this, I only have his Bringing Me Back Home track which is a beautiful record. Thanks.
many thanks for this great share!
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