Percy Sledge obituary

Although his career stretched from the 1960s to well into this century, Percy Sledge, who has died of liver cancer aged 74, will always be identified with his first and greatest hit, When a Man Loves a Woman. Driven by Sledge’s passionate, pleading delivery, the million-selling song topped the US pop and R&B charts in 1966 (and reached No 4 in Britain), instantly establishing him as an exceptional talent, even in a generation of soul music geniuses such as Otis Redding, James Brown and Sam Cooke. Inducting Sledge into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, Rod Stewart described it as one of the best songs he had ever heard.

Sledge enjoyed a streak of chart success and critical adulation in the wake of When a Man Loves a Woman, with Warm and Tender Love and It Tears Me Up following it into the R&B top 10 that year, but his popularity waned during the 1970s, despite a comeback with I’ll Be Your Everything in 1974. Yet Sledge’s trademark tune didn’t let him down, and came to his rescue once again in the 1980s, when Levi’s used When a Man Loves a Woman in a jeans commercial in the UK, in the process propelling the song to No 2 in the British charts in 1987. Ironically, it was kept out of the top spot by the reissue of another soul staple, Ben E King’s Stand By Me. Audiences were reminded of the song’s indelible power again in 1991, when Michael Bolton’s version went to the top of the Billboard charts and won Bolton a Grammy.

Although he had co-written the song, Sledge was never able to retire on the royalties since he had given away all the writing credit to Cameron Lewis and Andrew Wright. They were his band-mates in a group called the Esquires Combo, whose song Why Did You Leave Me, Baby? had been transformed into When a Man Loves a Woman, largely through Sledge’s contributions. Despite claiming it was God’s will that he should give away his rights to the song, Sledge later confessed that it was “the worst decision I ever made”. Nonetheless, he said: “That song was meant to be for the world. For the world to love it makes me feel like a king.”

Sledge was born in Leighton, Alabama, and while growing up would sing in church every Sunday. However, he recalled how some of his earliest musical influences were white country singers, since “country was the only radio station we had”. He would find himself singing songs by Jim Reeves, Hank Williams and Elvis Presley when he took labouring jobs, while daydreaming of becoming a professional baseball player. However, when he became a husband and father as a teenager, he needed steady work and took a job at the Colbert County hospital as a nurse and orderly.

He had moved on to a better-paid job in a chemical factory when he received an unexpected offer from an old acquaintance to sing with the Esquires Combo. The offer of $50 for a gig was irresistible, and soon he was singing a mixture of soul classics and Beatles hits at local colleges and clubs. At a 1965 date at the University of Mississippi, Sledge and the group were spotted by the DJ and aspiring record producer Quin Ivy, who urged them to come and make a record.

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An appointment was duly made at Ivy’s studio in Sheffield, Alabama, where When a Man Loves a Woman was hammered into shape by some crack session musicians borrowed from the Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, including the guitarist Jimmy Johnson and keyboards player Spooner Oldham. Ivy, who had signed Sledge to a recording contract as a solo singer, initially released the song independently, but he quickly licensed it to Atlantic Records. Detecting they were on to a good thing, Atlantic bought out Sledge’s contract.

Sledge’s early surge of success hit its final high with Take Time to Know Her (1968), which made No 6 on the R&B chart. Even if his records were not charting, Sledge’s work was always treasured by soul aficionados. He switched to the Georgia-based Capricorn Records after Atlantic declined to release the album I’ll Be Your Everything. After releasing it in 1974, Capricorn decided to drop its soul artists in favour of rock acts, notably the Allman Brothers Band. Rock music was beginning to overshadow soul, and Sledge developed new audiences further afield. His hectic touring schedule had taken him to US military bases in Germany, and he now found himself in demand among German and Swiss audiences at nightclubs and ski resorts. He was also a major draw in the Netherlands, and played up to 100 concerts a year in South Africa, then still under apartheid.

The 80s revival of When a Man Loves a Woman took several forms. Apart from the Levi’s commercial, the song featured in the film The Big Chill (1983) and in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam war film Platoon (1986). In 1992 it turned up in The Crying Game, and in 1994 it became the title song of a Meg Ryan/Andy Garcia melodrama.

In 1989, Sledge won the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s career achievement award, which helped boost him into a period of steady touring in the 90s. His album Blue Night (1994), featuring such prestigious guests as Bobby Womack, Mick Taylor and Steve Cropper, was Sledge’s first collection of new material in over a decade, and in 1996 it won him a Blues Music award for best soul/blues album of the year and a WC Handy award for best soul or blues album.

His 2004 album Shining Through the Rain presaged his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the following year. In 2007 he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame and the Delta Music Museum, in Ferriday, Louisiana. A comprehensive four-CD retrospective of his career, The Atlantic Recordings, was issued by Rhino Handmade in 2010, the same year in which he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

Sledge is survived by his second wife, Rosa, and by 12 children.