TRIBUTE
PERCY SLEDGE, THE R&B SINGER WHOSE VOICE powered the 1966 classic “When a Man Loves a Woman,” died on April 14th of liver cancer at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was 74. “Percy had a voice that touched anyone who heard it,” says Rod Stewart, “and made them think anything was possible.”
Sledge was born in the tiny rural community of Leighton, Alabama, to parents who made their living picking cotton. He began singing in church and while working alongside his family. “I was 10 years old, singing songs in the field,” Sledge said in 2005. “My boss man told me one day, ‘Perce, the voice coming out of your throat, the whole world is gonna hear it one day.’ ”
It was in those cotton fields…
