Percy Sledge, the voice behind the
legendary soul track "When A Man Loves a Woman," has died, his
representatives at Artists International Management confirmed Tuesday. The
coroner in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Sledge lived, told The Associated
Press he died Tuesday morning.
The
details of Sledge's death were not immediately available. He had been treated
last year for liver cancer, a diagnosis that spurred a benefit concert last September. Sledge was
born in Leighton, Alabama, and was working as a hospital orderly in 1965 when
he began singing at local clubs with a group called the Esquires,according to
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where Sledge was inducted in 2005.
"When A Man Loves A Woman" was released by Atlantic
Records the following year, rising to the top of the R&B and pop charts. It
was the culmination of a tune he had singing to himself for years.
"I
hummed it all my life, even when I was picking and chopping cotton in the
fields," he told the Hall of Fame.
He
improvised the words while performing at a fraternity party, where his
soon-to-be-producer, Quin Ivy, heard him. Sledge later recalled recording the song in Muscle Shoals,
Alabama, wearing a baseball uniform; he harbored dreams of playing
professionally.
The
song would be his biggest hit — a certified classic. Sledge, who sang in a
soaring, gospel-influenced voice, went on to record many more albums. Among his
other hits in the late 1960s were "Warm and
Tender Love," "It Tears Me Up," "Out of Left Field"
and "Take Time to Know Her."
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