Percy Sledge, the R&B legend who memorably sang/cried When A Man Loves a Woman, has died at his home in Baton Rouge, according to multiple reports. He was 74.
William "Beau" Clark, coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish, confirmed to the Associated Press that Sledge died early Tuesday morning, about an hour after midnight, of natural causes in hospice care.
The Times Dailyof northwestern Alabama, near Sledge's hometown of Leighton, Ala., cited Sledge's longtime friend David Johnson as confirming his death.
The Alabama Music Hall of Fame, where Sledge was a member since 1993, also confirmed the death.
Sledge was an icon of the "Muscle Shoals sound," named for the city near his hometown known since the 1960s for local recording studios where hits that shaped American pop music were recorded.
Sledge recorded When a Man Loves a Woman in 1966 at Norala Sound Studio in Sheffield, Ala.
It was his first recording, one that launched an enduring career, established once-obscure Muscle Shoals as a recording mecca, and helped usher in an era when white and black musicians worked together in the studio.
The song reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B singles charts. It was No. 54 in the list of Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs of all time.
It was Atlantic Records' first gold record. Company executive Jerry Wexler later called the song "a holy love hymn." It became a favorite at weddings and turned up in movies, including The Big Chill and The Crying Game.
Besides the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Sledge was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.
In 2010, in an interview with USA TODAY's Jerry Shriver, Sledge was reluctant to describe the romantic catastrophe that produced the song, the most anguished, aching, iconic soul anthem of the Boomer era.
"I am happily married now, so just let it go. That's been written already," he said then.
Instead, he talked about the life-changing influence of the song itself and the wealth of other country-soul ballads in the four-disc set, Percy Sledge: The Atlantic Recordings 1966-1974, the first large-scale overview of the singer, released by Rhino Handmade.
Sledge, recognized by his wide, gap-toothed smile, also had other hits between 1966 and 1968, including Warm and Tender Love, It Tears Me Up, Out of Left Field and Take Time to Know Her. He returned to the charts in 1974 with I'll Be Your Everything.
Growing up, Sledge worked in the cotton fields around his hometown and in a hospital in nearby Sheffield. He also spent weekends playing with a rhythm-and-blues band called the Esquires. A patient at the hospital heard him singing while working and recommended him to record producer Quin Ivy.
Sledge had surgery for liver cancer in January 2014 but resumed touring shortly after.
Contributing: The Associated Press
