Percy Sledge, soul singer, was 73

Percy Sledge, out of Leighton, Alabama, sang the soul classic "When a Man Loves a Woman" for Atlantic Records in 1966, and had continued to perform his biggest hit on gigs in the U.S. and Europe. The song "raised the bar for soul balladeering for all time," the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wrote. He was inducted in 2005. "When a Man Loves a Woman" was reportedly inspired when Sledge's girlfriend left him for a modelling career after he was laid off from a construction job. You'll hear it everywhere today, so here's another of his performances that I like as much, "Bring It on Home to Me."

Sledge died today at home in Baton Rouge. He was 73.

From his biography there:

If Percy Sledge had only recorded “When a Man Loves a Woman,” one of the greatest of all soul songs, he would have earned his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No less an authority than Jerry Wexler has called it “a transcendent moment….a holy love hymn.” Released on Atlantic in 1966, “When a Man Loves a Woman” topped the R&B and pop charts for multiple weeks and raised the bar for soul balladeering for all time. Yet Sledge’s career didn’t end with that momentous first single. Over the years he racked up a dozen hits at Atlantic, including “Warm and Tender Love,” “It Tears Me Up,” “Out of Left Field” and “Take Time to Know Her.”

Sledge, who was born in Leighton, Alabama, was working as a hospital orderly when he began playing clubs and frat parties with the Esquires, a locally popular group, in 1965. As he recalls, “I was singing every style of music: the Beatles, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Motown,Sam Cooke, the Platters.” That broad exposure gave him a soulful versatility as a singer that is evident on his Atlantic recordings.

“When a Man Loves a Woman” was Sledge’s first single, cut by producers Quin Ivy and Marlin Greene at their modest studio in Sheffield, Alabama. Sledge had carried the song’s melody with him for a long time. “I hummed it all my life, even when I was picking and chopping cotton in the fields,” he recalls.

He improvised words to go with his melody one night while performing at a frat party at the University of Mississippi, and Ivy, who was then a college student, told him, “If you ever think about cutting a record, come on by, because I love that melody.”