Soul legend Percy Sledge dies aged 73

SOUL star Percy Sledge, best remembered for the hit single When A Man Loves A Woman, died yesterday at the age of 73.

The singer (pictured) died at his home in Louisiana after having liver cancer for more than a year. He is survived by his wife and children.

His career spanned almost half a century, beginning with the 1966 ballad, which appeared in a popular Levi j eans advert as well as a number of films.

Sledge’s other 1960s hits included Warm And Tender Love, It Tears Me Up and Take Time To Know Her. He returned to the charts in 1974 with I’ll Be Your Everything.

DJ Tony Blackburn wrote online: ‘ Sad to hear that Percy Sledge has died. I wonder how many times I’ve played When A Man Loves A Woman?’

Steve Green from talent agency Artists International Management told the BBC: ‘ He was one of my first acts, he was a terrific person and you don’t find that in this business very often. He was truly a standout.’

Sledge’s early life saw him work in the cotton fields around his hometown in Alabama, before becoming a hospital nurse in the early 1960s.

He also spent weekends playing with a rhythmand-blues band called the Esquires. A patient at the hospital heard him singing while working and recommended him to record producer Quin Ivy.

When A Man Loves A Woman, his debut single, reached the top ten twice in Britain and topped the US Billboard chart for two weeks in 1966.

Sledge once said of his most famous song: ‘I hummed it all my life, even when I was picking and chopping cotton in the fields.’ Some believe Sledge wrote it himself – he said he was inspired by a girlfriend who left him – but he gave the writing credits to two of his Esquires bandmates, bassist Calvin Lewis and organist Andrew Wright.