Soul singer Percy Sledge dies at 74

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Percy Sledge, who soared from part-time singer and hospital orderly to lasting fame with his aching, forlorn performance on the classic "When a Man Loves a Woman," died today in Louisiana. He was 74.

Dr. William "Beau" Clark, coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish, confirmed to The Associated Press that Sledge died about an hour after midnight of natural causes in hospice care.

His family later said in a statement released through his manager, Mark Lyman, that he died peacefully at his home in Baton Rouge after a yearlong struggle with cancer. The cause of death was liver failure, Lyman said.

A No. 1 hit in 1966, "When a Man Loves a Woman" was Sledge's debut single, an almost unbearably heartfelt ballad with a resonance he never approached again. Few singers could have. Its mood set by a mournful organ and dirge-like tempo, "When a Man Loves a Woman" was for many the definitive soul ballad, a testament of blinding, all-consuming love haunted by fear and graced by overwhelming emotion.

The song was a personal triumph for Sledge, who seemed on the verge of sobbing throughout the production, and a breakthrough for Southern soul. It was the first No. 1 hit from Alabama's burgeoning Muscle Shoals music scene, where Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones among others would record, and the first gold record for Atlantic Records.