Country music has lost a legend. Charley Pride died Saturday at age 86, from complications of COVID-19.

Born a sharecropper’s son in Mississippi, Pride rose to become country music’s first Black superstar – and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He fell in love with country music while listening to Grand Ole Opry radio shows in his youth.

His baritone voice was featured on more than 50 Top 10 country hits and Pride’s final performance was on November 11th when he received the Country Music Association’s lifetime achievement award at the annual CMA Awards show. He performed “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'” with Jimmie Allen at the event, though several other groups skipped the show due to positive Covid-19 tests or exposure.

While some have suggested he caught the illness at the event, the CMA has been quick to point out that the took all precautions seriously and that they were followed to the letter. Pride is survived by his wife, Ebby Rozene Cohran Pride, three children, five grandchildren, and two grandchildren.

Dolly Parton is literally a lifesaver. Just ask Talia Hill, a 9-year-old actor, and dancer in Dolly’s Netflix holiday special, “Christmas on the Square.” She just revealed that Dolly saved her life by pulling her out of the path of an oncoming vehicle.

Talia remembered the moment in a recent interview with “Inside Edition.”

“We were on set, and I was at the hot chocolate station, and they said go back to your beginning positions,” she said. “So there was a vehicle moving, and I was walking, and then somebody grabbed me and pulled me back, and I looked up and it was Dolly Parton.”

“‘Well, I am an angel, you know,’” Talia said Parton told her, “’cause she plays an angel in the movie. Talia said she was “in shock” afterward.

“She hugged me and shook me and said, ‘I saved your life,’” Talia recalled. “And my mom was crying, like, ‘Yes you did, Dolly Parton, yes you did.’”

Sam Hunt is an amazing country artist but we almost never heard of him because of his lifelong dream as a kid to be a professional bull-rider.

It seems Sam originally had plans to be a bull-rider, back when he was about nine years old growing up in Georgia.

“I remember being really excited when I got into riding horses, and one Christmas I got a Mustang that I named Comanche, and that was a really exciting time. I rode all the time after that. I was able to ride whenever I wanted to,” Hunt said in a recent radio interview. “I remember one year, it probably started from the horse-riding thing, but I got into wanting to be a bull rider.

“I was still pretty young, so one Christmas we got a little steer calf. It had a little rope, and I’d try to ride the calf.”

But eventually, Hunt recalled, that little calf grew up. And that was pretty much the end of that.”

Source: CMT

Taylor Swift has been named one of “Entertainment Weekly’s” Entertainers of the Year. In a new interview for the magazine, Swift addresses rumors she’s engaged to Joe Alwyn, and has some choice words for people who aren’t following COVID-19 protocol.

There’s a writer credited on Taylor’s new hit album “Folklore,” the mysterious William Bowery. Taylor is no stranger to pseudonyms, and fans have a feeling Mr. Bowery is actually her rumored betrothed Joe. When grilled by the magazine, Taylor only gives up that the “only people” who knew about her album were her family, management team and her “boyfriend.” That rules out “fiance” for now, but William Bowery could still be Joe!

When it comes to those who don’t want to play by the pandemic rules, Taylor is thinking about how that affects those on the frontlines of coronavirus. “A lot of people don’t seem to have their eyes open to that, or a lot of people don’t care, which is upsetting,” she says. “You hope people would respect it and understand that going out for a night isn’t worth the ripple effect that it causes.”