King of Slow Soul Percy Sledge takes final bow

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Music folklore has it that Percy Sledge was a lovelorn wreck when he got the chance to record a song with Atlantic Records.

Sledge, who died of liver cancer Wednesday aged 74, was apparently heartbroken after the woman he loved left him for another man.

He would express this unrequited love in one of the best love ballads of all time, When a Man Loves a Woman. In the Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, When a Man Loves a Woman comes in at Number 53.

When a Man Loves a Woman topped the pop charts in 1966 and sold more than a million copies, becoming Atlantic Records’ first gold record (at the time a million copies were certified as ‘gold’).

Sledge described its composition a “miracle” and it is this song that thrust this soulful country boy from the South into the limelight.

At a time that soul was dominated by Motown stars like Tammi Terrell, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross alongside groups like the Chi-lites, Sledge was one of the South’s first soul stars.

Hospital attendant

Before that, he was working as an attendant at a hospital, having grown up in his Alabama hometown picking cotton and, according to some accounts, doing construction jobs.

During the weekends, he would perform in clubs and colleges.

A chance introduction by one of his patients to Atlantic Record’s producer Quin Ivy led him to the studio and the rest, as they say, is history.

After the runaway success that was When a Man Loves a Woman, Sledge went on to achieve commercial success with a series of other soulful numbers in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The story of heartbreak was to be dominant still in this cautious crooner’s second most successful hit, Take Time to Know Her, a story about a man who refuses to heed his mother’s advice and marries the “angel of his dreams,” only to be heartbroken.

Yet it was the sheer pierce of emotion in When a Man Loves a Woman that continued to keep this gap-toothed smooth singer in the limelight.

The song was covered by many artistes and featured in commercials and movies as a soundtrack.  A 1991 cover version of the song by Michael Bolton topped the billboards again and went on to earn him a Grammy. This is the most common version of the song.

A 1987 re-issue in the United Kingdom came in at number 2.

In an unlikely turn of events, Sledge never earned any royalties from the song in any of its forms. The song is credited to his two early bandmates — bassist Calvin Lewis and the organist Andrew Wright who assisted him with the arrangement. He had credited them as co-writers, a decision he attributed to his young age (he was 25).

Percy Sledge went on to record other songs with modest success, nothing close to his explosive debut, and spent the next five decades performing and releasing a total of nine albums. He continued giving performances until last year when he underwent surgery for liver cancer.

Some of his notable songs include Warm and Tender Love, What Am I living for, Many Rivers to Cross and Help Me Make it Through the Night.

Throughout, he remained the sentimental ballad-singer, in contrast to the likes of the more energetic James Brown.

Though they were both from the South, the former was the King of Slow Soul, the latter variously referred to as ‘Mr Dynamite’, Soul Brother No 1 and eventually crowned the Godfather of Soul.

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

In Warm and Tender Love, Sledge’s sentimental opening line goes: Let me wrap you in my warm and tender love. Death has wrapped him in its definite and final embrace.