Alabama legend Percy Sledge, singer of ‘When a Man Loves a Woman,’ dies at age 74

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April 14, 2015

'When a Man Loves a Woman' singer Percy Sledge (Flickr User Hans Westbeek)

(Above: Percy Sledge’s #1 hit ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’)

BATON ROUGE, La. — Alabama Native and legendary R&B and Soul singer Percy Sledge passed away in hospice care in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at around 1 a.m. Tuesday.

Sledge’s most famous work, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” was the first #1 hit recorded in Muscle Shoals. It went on to be named the 53rd greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone.

Sledge was discovered when a patient at the hospital in Sheffield, Alabama where he worked heard him singing and recommended him to Muscle Shoals record producer Quin Ivy.

“When I came into the studio, I was shaking like a leaf. I was scared.” Sledge said on recording his #1 hit in a 2013 documentary “Muscle Shoals,” adding that it was the “same melody that I sang when I was out in the fields. I just wailed out in the woods and let the echo come back to me.”