U.S. soul singer Percy Sledge, famed for his song “When a Man Loves a Woman,” has died at age 74.

    Steve Green from talent agency Artists International Management Inc. confirmed that he died at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Tuesday.

    Sledge had surgery for liver cancer in January 2014 but soon resumed touring.

    Sledge’s debut single “When a Man Loves a Woman” reached the top 10 twice in Britain and topped the U.S. Billboard chart for two weeks in 1966, when it also got to number four in the U.K. chart.

    The track reached number two when it was re-released in Britain in 1987 after appearing in Oliver Stone’s film “Platoon,” and was featured in several other films such as “The Big Chill,” “The Crying Game” and a 1994 Meg Ryan drama named after the song itself. It was also the soundtrack to a Levis advert in 1987.

    It was the first U.S. number one recorded at Alabama’s Muscle Shoals studio, where Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones would later record.

    The track also scored a first gold disc for Atlantic Records, whose executive Jerry Wexler called the song “a transcendent moment” and “a holy love hymn.”

    It remained Sledge’s biggest hit and helped sustain a long touring career in the United States, Europe and South Africa, averaging 100 performances a year. His other chart successes included “Warm and Tender Love,” “It Tears Me Up” and “Take Time to Know Her.”

    The song found new life in 1991 when Michael Bolton’s cover of the song topped the Billboard chart.

    Before his music career, Sledge worked in the cotton fields around his hometown of Leighton in northwest Alabama, before taking a job as a hospital nurse in the early 1960s.

    A patient heard him singing while he worked and recommended him to record producer Quin Ivy.

    The singer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 and was a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

    He is survived by his wife and children. (SD-Agencies)