Percy Sledge Passes Away!

When a man love the music....

The world loses a crooner of soul music. The family of R&B singer Percy Sledge confirms that legendary singer passed away today.

He is known for recording the single "When a Man Loves a Woman" in 1966, an international top 40 hit that the RIAA has certified as gold. Having previously worked as a hospital nurse in the early 1960s, he achieved his best success in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s with a series of emotional soul songs, in his later years receiving the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Career Achievement Award.

Sledge was born on November 25, 1940 in Leighton, Alabama. He worked in a series of agricultural jobs in the fields in Leighton before taking a job as an orderly at Colbert County Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama. Through the mid-1960s, he toured the Southeast with the Esquires Combo on weekends, while working at the hospital during the week. A former patient and mutual friend of Sledge and record producer Quin Ivy introduced the two. An audition followed, and Sledge was signed to a recording contract.

Sledge married twice and was survived by his second wife, Rosa Sledge, whom he married in 1980.

He had 12 children, two of whom became singers.

He died of cancer confirmed his publicist. He was a resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

We here at Journal de la Reyna send our condolences to the family of Percy Sledge.