The Music Diaries | The soulful Percy Sledge

"When a man loves a woman,

Can't keep his mind on nothin' else.

He'd trade the world for the good thing he's found.

If she's bad he can't see it, she can do no wrong.

And turn his back on his best friend if he puts her down"

Lyrics from the opening lines of Percy Sledge's When A Man Loves A Woman, perhaps the most sentimental tear-jerker in the history of soul music. Certainly one of the most loved R&B songs of all time, it literally shot Sledge to international prominence almost overnight - hitting number one on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the R & B singles chart, while selling millions, and attracting a certified gold disc award.

Sledge continues to expose man's romantic vulnerability as the song continues:

"When a man loves a woman,

Spends his very last dime in trying to hold on to what he needs.

He'd give up all his comforts and sleep out in the rain

If she says that's the way it ought to be.

When a man loves a woman, Deep down in his soul

She can bring him such misery.

If she's playing him for a fool,

He's the last one to know,

Loving eyes can never see."

Sure warning signs that a man should heed in his quest to make appreciable inroads on a woman's emotional constitution.

Much More

But there is much more to the song that made it a soul gem. The inclusion of a distinctive and innovative legato organ phrase, (sounding more like a church organ), which was brought to the forefront of the recording, gave it that extra lilt, that not only boost its soulful content, but placed it separate and apart from other soul classics of that era.

We are currently celebrating Sledge's 48 years of contribution to the entertainment business, which began in 1966 and lasted until months before his death on April 14, 2015. Another milestone was also reached exactly a week ago when we observed the 77th anniversary of his birth last Sunday. Born in Leighton, Alabama, in the United States in 1941, Sledge's earliest influence, like many others, came from the Church before he drifted into secular music by joining a group called the Esquire Combo, which played nightclub dates.

In the meantime, he attended high school in his hometown, and after graduation, worked as a hospital orderly and in cotton fields during the early 1960s. History has it that it was in one of those fields that he got the inspiration for writing the song of his life. He found himself humming the tune while he worked, and he stated later that he was further influenced by a break-up between him and his girlfriend, who had left for a modelling career.

Yet the authorship of the song is veiled in uncertainty. Two members (Andrew Wright and Calvin Lewis) of the group that Sledge fronted claimed co-authorship for the song, and he voluntarily gave up songwriting credit to them.

Nineteen sixty-six saw Sledge following up with two other intensely tearful soul ballads - It Tears Me Up and Warm and Tender Love. Using the same formula, Sledge managed to push both recordings into the US Top-10 R&B chart at number five and number seven, respectively. The latter cut, written by Bobby Robinson, saw Sledge issuing a romantic invitation:

"Let me wrap you in my warm and tender love, yeah

Let me wrap you in my warm and tender love.

Oh, I loved you for a long, long time

Darling, please say you'll be mine.

And let me wrap you in my warm and tender love."

New DimenSion

Sledge, in fact, brought a new dimension to soul music by also including elements of country

and gospel into his recordings. These effects can be heard in other hits like Cover Me, Love Me Tender, Out Left Field (1967), Take Time To Know Her (1968), and My Special Prayer (1969).

Listed 53rd in Rolling Stones 500 greatest songs of all times, When A Man Loves A Woman enjoyed a revival when it entered the UK charts in the late 1980s after being used in a Levi's commercial, while in the early 1990s, Michael Bolton's cover version brought the song back into the limelight when it hit number one on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

From the late 1990s to the time of his death, Sledge toured extensively in the US, the UK, and Canada and was even in Jamaica in March 2014 for a show billed 'Reggae-R&B Concert' at the Karl Hendrickson Auditorium, Jamaica College.

He died from liver cancer at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, approximately seven months short of his 75th birthday.