Singer Charley Pride was famous for being the first. Country music’s first African-American superstar broke a lot of ground over a 50-plus year career as one of the most beloved entertainers in the nation’s history, culminating in his being enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame and winning a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

New Yorkers will also remember Pride, who died Dec. 12, as the first act to perform a concert on the stage of the New York State Fair grandstand, back in 1969, as documented by the captioned photo on display in the Fair history exhibit.

In remembering Pride, it is a common mistake to call him a great black singer, just as it would be to call Hank Aaron a great black baseball player or Viola Davis a great black actress. Greatness knows no race and country music radio fans were already cheering Pride’s expressive baritone before they discovered that the Mississippi native was African-American.

As much as that barrier needed to be broken, Charley Pride always downplayed his race and his role as a pioneer in the white-dominated industry. Though there was early reluctance on the part of some fans to accept him, his character, warmth and charisma, as much as his distinctive voice, won them over and elevated him to the upper echelon of his profession.

Pride had cracked the top ten on Billboard’s country chart eight times when he played the State Fair and his appearance there was an early indicator that fans would fill the trackside bleachers for popular acts as they did many times over the ensuing four decades.

But as so often was the case, the inimitable Charley Pride was the first.