“Percy Sledge is the most dynamic new soul singer to arrive on the record scene in years,” wrote Bob Rolontz on the original liner notes to the artist’s 1966 Atlantic debut When a Man Loves a Woman.  That LP, of course, was titled for the song that took the balladeer to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts right out of the gate and yielded him the No. 20 record of the year, sandwiched between Tommy James and the Shondells and The Rolling Stones.  Though Percy Sledge (1940-2015) never topped the heights of “When a Man Loves a Woman,” he left behind a small yet vital discography for Atlantic between 1966 and 1970.  His output for the label has just been revisited by Edsel on a new three-volume series pairing When a Man Loves a Woman/Warm and Tender Soul on one CD; The Percy Sledge Way/Take Time to Know Her on two CDs; and My Special Prayer with Singles and Rarities on two CDs.  All three volumes in the series also contain bonus tracks, for a complete look at Sledge’s Atlantic studio recordings.

When a Man Loves a Woman (U.S. No. 37 Pop/No. 2 R&B) was the long-playing debut from the Alabama-born singer.  With an attractive high tenor and natural vocal warmth, Sledge offered an alternative to the impassioned shouters on the Atlantic roster such as Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding.  (Pickett’s Atlantic discography is also the subject of a new series from Edsel; watch this space for more details soon!) Recorded at NORALA Studios with producer/studio owner Quin Ivy, “When a Man Loves a Woman” wasn’t the first hit record to come out of Muscle Shoals, but it was certainly the biggest to that point, and introduced Sledge’s country-soul style.  Muscle Shoals mainstay Dan Penn contributed a pair of tunes to the LP, “You Fooled Me” and “Success” – the latter co-written with Percy’s producer Quin Ivy.  Percy also covered tunes popularized by Joe Simon (“My Adorable One”) and Deon Jackson (“Love Makes the World Go Round”) in his atypically smooth southern-soul style.

The May 1966 release of When a Man Loves a Woman was followed just five months later, in October, with Warm and Tender Soul (No. 9 R&B/No. 137 Pop).  Its tunestack was even more diverse.  On it, Sledge revived Joe Haywood’s “Warm and Tender Love” (a song which bore so much of a relation to “My Adorable One” that the songwriters of the Joe Simon hit successfully sued for credit), scoring a No. 17 Pop/No. 5 R&B single.  He tackled Motown on a laidback version of Smokey Robinson’s immortal “You Really Got a Hold on Me.”  Future Motown superstar Edwin Starr’s “Oh How Happy”  got the Sledge treatment, as did the Brill Building pop of Goffin and King’s “So Much Love.”  He also brought a sweet flair to Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” and put his own stamp on “Try a Little Tenderness,” which Otis Redding released as a single at roughly the same time (November ’66).  Otis might have owned the song from that point forward, but Percy’s rendition is more than creditable.  Dan Penn was represented again with “It Tears Me Up,” a No. 7 R&B hit that also became Percy’s final top 20 Pop entry.  Similarly, Warm and Tender Soul was his final top ten entry on the R&B Albums chart.  Edsel’s two-fer adds four bonus cuts including the rare remake of “When a Man Loves a Woman” (not issued until 1998), a couple of non-LP singles, and “(With) Every Beat of My Heart,” an outtake from Warm and Tender Soul that first surfaced in 1974.

The 2-CD set The Percy Sledge Way/Take Time to Know Her pairs Percy’s third and fourth U.S. albums, from July 1967 and May 1968, respectively.  The Percy Sledge Way was recorded at NORALA, renamed Quinvy Studios, following sessions at nearby FAME that yielded a clutch of singles included on CD 1 of this set as bonus tracks.  As the title indicated, this album leaned even heavier on covers of soul classics, “the Percy Sledge way.”  Sledge tackled Dan Penn’s timeless “The Dark End of the Street,” then a recent hit for James Carr, as well as favorites associated with Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aaron Neville, William Bell, Solomon Burke, Otis Redding, and others inside and outside of the Atlantic family. The label pulled no singles from the LP, however, and it failed to chart on the R&B survey.  It cracked the Billboard 200 at No. 178. Follow-up album Take Time to Know Her was named for the No. 11 Pop hit which proved to be Percy’s biggest hit on the Hot 100 since “When a Man Loves a Woman.”  It would also be his final top 20 single.  Tracks were recorded to fill out an album around the hit single, including Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham’s “Feed the Flame,” Bobby Russell’s “Take Time,” and a couple of pop covers: a faithful take on The Classics IV’s “Spooky” and a delicate, organ-drenched rendition of The Fleetwoods’ “Come Softly to Me.”  The album made No. 27 R&B/No. 148 Pop.  Three single versions round out this disc.

With Percy’s sales on the wane, Atlantic lost confidence in the artist.  In 1969, his lone album release was The Best of Percy Sledge, and no further studio albums materialized during his time on the label.  However, his international popularity remained high in locations as far-flung as South Africa.  (Two South African-only albums are not included in this studio-recording-only series: The Percy Sledge Show, featuring a 20-minute live set plus performances from other local artists; and Percy Sledge in South Africa, consisting of original recordings overdubbed with audience applause and linked with new introductions from the artist.)  The Netherlands was another popular locale for the artist, and in 1970, the Dutch arm of Atlantic issued My Special Prayer.  This 14-track LP rounded up numerous U.S. non-album singles plus four previously unreleased tracks.  That set, featuring covers of Burt Bacharach (“Any Day Now”), The Bee Gees (“I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You”), Buffalo Springfield (“Kind Woman”) and The Everly Brothers (“Let It Be Me”) among its tracks, is joined on Disc One of this 2-CD set with six bonus tracks from 1968 originally released on U.S. singles and in South Africa.

The second disc of this final package in Edsel’s series, Singles and Rarities, boasts 21 additional bonus tracks circa 1969-1972, originally issued in the U.S. and the Netherlands.  Some of these cuts didn’t premiere until Rhino Handmade’s 2010 box set The Atlantic Recordings.  This disc is as varied and rewarding as the original albums, including Percy’s Christmas single “Silent Night” b/w “My Christmas Wish for You” (a hit in the Netherlands and South Africa), more songs by Dan Penn  (“Love is a Job,” “Faithful and True,” “Rainbow Road”) and covers of Wilson Pickett, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, and Gordon Lightfoot.  The set concludes with a thoroughly modern Percy via “Sunshine” b/w “Unchanging Love,” both sides of a Philadelphia-produced single by Phil Hurtt and Bunny Sigler.

Each one of these three volumes is housed in an attractive digipak containing a color booklet with detailed liner notes by Tony Rounce, plus full credits with recording dates and discographical annotation.  Phil Kinrade has remastered all tracks.  You won’t even have to spend your very last dime; these three discs constitute an affordable way to pick up some of the classiest southern soul ever produced, and with 99 tracks, they offer nearly as much as the aforementioned 2010 box set’s 104 tracks.  (The box included the Percy Sledge Show live set.)

All three of these collections from the late, legendary soul man Percy Sledge are available now from Edsel!

Percy Sledge, When a Man Loves a Woman/Warm and Tender Soul (Edsel EDSA 5063, 2016) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. When a Man Loves a Woman
2. My Adorable One
3. Put a Little Lovin’ on Me
4. Love Me All the Way
5. When She Touches Me (Nothing Else Matters)
6. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man
7. Thief in the Night
8. You Fooled Me
9. Love Makes the World Go Round
10. Success
11. Love Me Like You Mean It
12. It Tears Me Up
13. I’m Hanging Up My Heart for You
14. You Really Got a Hold on Me
15. That’s How Strong My Love Is
16. A Sweet Woman Like You
17. Love Me Tender
18. Warm and Tender Love
19. Try a Little Tenderness
20. So Much Love
21. I Stand Accused
22. Heart of a Child
23. Oh How Happy
24. When a Man Loves a Woman (Remake) (rec. March 1966, first issued 1998)
25. Sugar Puddin’ (Atlantic single 45-2341)
26. You’ve Got That Something Wonderful (Atlantic single 45-2383)
27. (With) Every Beat of My Heart (from The Golden Voice of Soul, Atlantic (Germany) LP K 20085, 1974)

Tracks 1-11 from When a Man Loves a Woman, Atlantic LP SD-8125, 1966
Tracks 12-23 from Warm and Tender Soul, Atlantic LP SD-8132, 1966

Percy Sledge, The Percy Sledge Way/Take Time to Know Her (Edsel EDSK 7116, 2016) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: The Percy Sledge Way (Atlantic LP SD 8146, 1967) plus bonus tracks

1. The Dark End of the Street
2. You Send Me
3. I Had a Talk with My Woman
4. What Am I Living For
5. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)
6. Tell It Like It Is
7. My Special Prayer
8. Drown in My Own Tears
9. Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)
10. Pledging My Love
11. You Don’t Miss Your Water
12. Little Girl (from Atlantic LP SD 9210)
13. Behind Every Great Man, There’s a Woman (Atlantic single 45-2453)
14. It Can’t Be Stopped (Atlantic single 45-2396)
15. It’s Hard to Believe (Atlantic single 45-2434)
16. Just Out of Reach (Single Version) (Atlantic single 45-2434)

CD 2: Take Time to Know Her (Atlantic LP SD 8180, 1968) plus bonus tracks

1. Take Time to Know Her
2. Feed the Flame
3. Sudden Stop
4. Come Softly to Me
5. Spooky
6. Out of Left Field
7. Cover Me
8. Baby Help Me
9. It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right
10. High Cost of Leaving
11. Between These Arms
12. I Love Everything About You
13. It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right (Single Version) (Atlantic single 45-2490)
14. Sudden Stop (Single Version) (Atlantic single 45-2539)
15. Between These Arms (Single Version) (Atlantic single 45-2539)

Percy Sledge, My Special Prayer/Singles and Rarities (Edsel EDSK 7113, 2016) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: My Special Prayer (Atlantic (Netherlands) LP 588 220, 1970) plus bonus tracks

1. True Love Travels on a Gravel Road
2. Push Mr. Pride Aside
3. Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)
4. Baby, Baby, Baby
5. Love’s Where Life Begins
6. Blow Out the Sun
7. I Gotta Get a Message to You
8. My Special Prayer
9. Set Me Free
10. Kind Woman
11. Cotton Mill Man
12. Keep Your Arms Around Me
13. Let It Be Me
14. Many Rivers to Cross
15. Self-Preservation (Atlantic single 45-2563, 1968)
16. You’re All Around Me (Atlantic single 45-2563, 1968)
17. Wanted (from Atlantic (South Africa) LP SD 9210, 1969)
18. Bless Your Sweet Little Soul (Atlantic single 45-2594, 1969)
19. The Angels Listened In (Atlantic single 45-2616, 1969)
20. Standing on the Mountain (Atlantic single 45-2848, 1972)

CD 2: More Bonus Tracks

1. Push Mr. Pride Aside (Single Version) (Atlantic single 45-2719, 1970)
2. Woman of the Night (Atlantic single 45-2646, 1969)
3. Faithful and True (Atlantic single 45-2679, 1969)
4. Silent Night (Atlantic (Netherlands) single 548 310, 1969)
5. My Christmas Wish for You (Atlantic (Netherlands) single 548 310, 1969)
6. Stop the World Tonight (Atlantic single 45-2826, 1970)
7. Help Me Make It Through the Night (Atlantic single 45-2754, 1970)
8. Love is a Job (rec. 1971, issued on The Atlantic Recordings, Rhino Handmade RHM 526138, 2010)
9. That’s the Way I Want to Live My Life (Atlantic single 45-2826, 1971)
10. Life’s Little Ups and Downs (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic (Netherlands) single K 20085, 1974)
11. What I Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Me (rec. 1971, issued on The Atlantic Recordings, Rhino Handmade RHM 526138, 2010)
12. I Found a Love (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic (Netherlands) single K 20085, 1974)
13. Time (rec. 1971, issued on The Atlantic Recordings, Rhino Handmade RHM 526138, 2010)
14. Everything You’ll Ever Need (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic single 45-2886, 1972)
15. Sunday Brother (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic single 45-2886, 1972)
16. Rainbow Road (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic single 45-2848, 1972)
17. Here I Am (rec. 1971, issued on Atlantic (Netherlands) single K 20085, 1974)
18. You Can Always Get It Where You Got It (rec. 1971, issued on The Atlantic Recordings, Rhino Handmade RHM 526138, 2010)
19. Same Old Loverman (rec. 1971, issued on The Atlantic Recordings, Rhino Handmade RHM 526138, 2010)
20. Sunshine (rec. 1972, issued on Atlantic single 45-2963, 1973)
21. Unchanging Love (rec. 1972, issued on Atlantic single 45-2963, 1973)