Percy Sledge, who soared from part-time singer and hospital orderly to lasting fame with his aching, forlorn performance on the classic “When a Man Loves a Woman,” died this week in Louisiana. He was 73.
Sledge’s longtime manager Mark Lyman confirmed his death to CBS News. Sledge died early Tuesday morning, about an hour after midnight of natural causes in hospice care.
A No. 1 hit in 1966, “When a Man Loves a Woman” was Sledge’s debut single, an almost unbearably heartfelt ballad with a resonance he never approached again. Few singers could have. Its mood set by a mournful organ and dirge-like tempo, “When a Man Loves a Woman” was for many the definitive soul ballad, a testament of blinding, all-consuming love haunted by fear and graced by overwhelming emotion.
“When a Man Loves a Woman” was a personal triumph for Sledge, who seemed on the verge of sobbing throughout the production, and a breakthrough for Southern soul. It was the first No. 1 hit from Alabama’s burgeoning Muscle Shoals music scene, where Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones among others would record, and the first gold record for Atlantic Records.
Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler later called the song “a transcendent moment” and “a holy love hymn.” Sledge’s hit became a standard that sustained his long touring career in the U.S., Europe and South Africa, when he averaged 100 performances a year, and led to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. It was a favorite at weddings – Sledge himself did the honors at a ceremony for musician and actor Steve Van Zandt – and often turned up in movies, including “The Big Chill,” “The Crying Game” and a 1994 Meg Ryan drama named for the song’s title.
“When a Man Loves a Woman” was re-released after being featured in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War film “Platoon” in 1987 and reached No. 2 in Britain. Michael Bolton topped the charts in the 1990s with a cover version and Rolling Stone magazine later ranked it No. 53 on its list of the greatest songs of all time.
Recognizable by his wide, gap-toothed smile, Sledge had a handful of other hits between 1966 and 1968, including “Warm and Tender Love,” “It Tears Me Up,” “Out of Left Field” and “Take Time to Know Her.” He returned to the charts in 1974 with “I’ll Be Your Everything.”
Before he became famous, Sledge worked in the cotton fields around his hometown of Leighton in northwest Alabama and took a job in a hospital in nearby Sheffield. He also spent weekends playing with a rhythm-and-blues band called the Esquires. A patient at the hospital heard him singing while working and recommended him to record producer Quin Ivy.
In April 1994, Sledge pleaded guilty in federal court to tax evasion involving income from concerts in the late 1980s. He was sentenced to six months in a halfway house, given five years of probation, and ordered to pay $96,000 in back taxes and fines. When he pleaded guilty, he told the judge, “I knew I owed more.”
Sledge had surgery for liver cancer in January 2014 but soon resumed touring.
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