Essentials: The Best of Percy Sledge

Percy Sledge

Percy Sledge, an important figure in Southern soul music, went from working as a hospital nurse to leading a local Alabama group called the Esquires Combo to having a huge national hit with 1966's gospel-tinged soul ballad "When a Man Loves a Woman." That record, and the rest of the material Sledge recorded for Atlantic in the '60s, displays his mastery of the genre. He resurfaced on Capricorn Records in 1974 and has performed and recorded ever since, but despite being one of the best deep Soul singers of his era, Sledge will always be associated principally with his evergreen '66 smash.