Percy Sledge
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40 free Percy Sledge trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Percy Sledge sang as if every word cost him something. His first single, When a Man Loves a Woman, went to No. 1 in 1966 and became one of the most replayed soul ballads ever recorded, returning to the charts through films, adverts and cover versions for decades afterwards. This quiz covers the whole story: the day job he held before fame, the small-town sessions behind the hits, and Take Time to Know Her, the 1968 cautionary tale about a rushed marriage that became his second-biggest American hit. You will also meet the writers, producers and session players who shaped his sound, plus the comebacks and honors of his later years. It suits soul fans, pub quiz regulars and anyone who knows the big song and wants the stories around it. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01Percy Sledge is sometimes cited as the source of 'sledging', the trading of on-field insults in which sport?
Cricket
Cricket picked up the word in 1960s Australia, and one tale has fielders taunting a batsman by singing a Percy Sledge hit. The duller theory traces it to 'subtle as a sledgehammer'.
Q 02What weekday job did Percy Sledge hold in the early 1960s while singing with a band on weekends?
Hospital orderly
Hospital orderly was his weekday job, and he sang on the wards as he worked. A former patient is said to have passed his name to the producer who signed him.
Q 03Which singer took a cover of Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' to No. 1 in America in 1991?
Michael Bolton
Michael Bolton's version topped the Hot 100 in November 1991, some 25 years after the original, making the song one of the few to reach No. 1 for two different artists.
Q 04Which clothing brand's 1987 TV advert sent Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' back up the British charts?
Levi's
Levi's put the 1966 recording in a jeans advert, and the reissued single climbed to No. 2 in Britain, two places higher than it managed first time round.
Q 05Which Vietnam War film used Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman', prompting a 1987 reissue of the single?
Platoon
Platoon, Oliver Stone's Best Picture winner, used the song, and the 21-year-old single was reissued in America to promote the film's soundtrack album.
Q 06Which actress starred in the 1994 drama that took its title from Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman'?
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan played a school counselor battling alcoholism opposite Andy García, a dramatic turn that earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination.
Q 07Donna Jean Godchaux, a backing singer on Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman', later joined which rock band?
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead had her as a vocalist from 1972 to 1979. Before that she was a Muscle Shoals session singer who also backed Elvis Presley on 'Suspicious Minds'.
Q 08In Percy Sledge's 1968 hit 'Take Time to Know Her', who first warns the singer not to rush into marriage?
His mother
His mother gives the advice of the title after one look at the bride-to-be. A preacher repeats it, and the hasty marriage soon ends in betrayal.
Q 09Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' earned the first gold single for which label, home of Aretha Franklin?
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records had issued hits by Ray Charles and the Drifters, yet its first RIAA gold single came in July 1966 from a debut record cut in a tiny Southern studio.
Q 10What flaw is heard on Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' because the wrong tape was released?
Out-of-tune horns
Out-of-tune horns survive on the single: the label asked for a remake with new players, then pressed the original tape by mistake, and that take went to No. 1.
Q 11In which U.S. state was Percy Sledge born, in the small farming town of Leighton?
Alabama
Alabama's rural northwest shaped him: he first sang in a Baptist church in Leighton, and the town announced an annual Sledgefest in his honor in 2022.
Q 12As a boy, Percy Sledge was told the whole world would hear his voice while he worked picking which crop?
Cotton
Cotton fields around Leighton were his first workplace, from about the age of ten. He retold his field boss's prediction at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Q 13Percy Sledge reached the American Top 40 in 1967 with a soul version of which Elvis Presley ballad?
Love Me Tender
Love Me Tender took Sledge to No. 40 on the Hot 100. In a 2005 interview he recalled his boyhood love of Elvis and of country singers.
Q 21Which executive who coined the term 'rhythm and blues' wanted Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' re-recorded?
Jerry Wexler
Jerry Wexler heard a flaw in the first take and wanted it redone. Decades later he wrote the liner notes for Sledge's 1994 comeback album.
Q 22Which session keyboardist, later a Neil Young sideman, played organ on Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman'?
Spooner Oldham
Spooner Oldham played a Farfisa organ on the session. His nickname dates from a childhood accident with a spoon that cost him the sight in one eye.
Q 23Percy Sledge gave the writing credit for 'When a Man Loves a Woman' to two members of which band he fronted?
The Esquires
Q 14Percy Sledge's second album covered 'Try a Little Tenderness', a standard made famous by which Georgia soul star?
Otis Redding
Otis Redding turned the 1930s standard into a soul landmark in 1966, and Sledge's own version sits on an album that also remade an Elvis ballad.
Q 15Which 1983 film about a reunion of college friends used Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' on its soundtrack?
The Big Chill
The Big Chill packed its soundtrack with 1960s soul and Motown, one of several films that kept bringing Sledge's ballad to new generations of listeners.
Q 16Which star sang Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' in The Rose, a 1979 film inspired by Janis Joplin?
Bette Midler
Bette Midler belted it as a hard-living rock singer in her first starring film role, and her single reached the American Top 40 in 1980.
Q 17Which radio show did the young Percy Sledge love, feeding the country flavor of his later soul ballads?
The Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry reached him by radio in rural Colbert County, and one biographer likens his keening voice to the high-lonesome sound of country singers.
Q 18By Percy Sledge's account, 'When a Man Loves a Woman' was inspired by a girlfriend who left him to pursue what?
A modeling career
A modeling career lured her away just after he was laid off from a construction job in 1965, and he said the double blow became the song.
Q 19Which British rock singer, who had recorded in Muscle Shoals, inducted Percy Sledge into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart gave the induction speech in March 2005, and Sledge answered by singing his 1966 chart-topper on the televised ceremony.
Q 20Which Tennessee teenager wrote Percy Sledge's 'Take Time to Know Her' before a long career writing country hits?
Steve Davis
Steve Davis had just turned 18 when the single took off. As Stephen Allen Davis he went on to write country chart-toppers for singers including Jo Dee Messina.
The Esquires' bassist Calvin Lewis and organist Andrew Wright are the only credited writers. Obituaries said the gift probably cost Sledge a fortune in royalties.
Q 24Which disc jockey and record-shop owner produced Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' at his own small studio?
Quin Ivy
Quin Ivy later left the music business, earned an MBA and spent years teaching accounting at a university close to his old studio.
Q 25In which Louisiana city, far from his Muscle Shoals roots, did Percy Sledge live for most of his career?
Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge was his home for decades and the place where he died in 2015, eight years after the state's music hall of fame inducted him.
Q 26Which reissued Ben E. King classic kept Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' at No. 2 in Britain in 1987?
Stand by Me
Stand by Me was riding the same jeans campaign and a hit film of the same name, so two reissued 1960s soul ballads held the top two places.
Q 27Which British pop veteran recorded a duet with Percy Sledge for the 2011 album Soulicious and took him on tour?
Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard sang 'I'm Your Puppet' with him on the album of soul duets, and again on the tour that followed.
Q 28At which New Jersey rocker's 1982 wedding, with Bruce Springsteen as best man, did Percy Sledge sing his biggest hit?
Steven Van Zandt
Steven Van Zandt married Maureen Santoro on New Year's Eve 1982 with Little Richard presiding, and Sledge serenaded the couple with 'When a Man Loves a Woman'.
Q 29Which 1994 comeback album, recorded in Los Angeles, did Percy Sledge call his first since the early 1970s?
Blue Night
Blue Night was recorded in March 1994, and an Indianapolis Star critic called it easily the best record he had heard that year.
Q 30Which guitarist from the Rolling Stones' early-1970s lineup played slide on Percy Sledge's 1994 comeback album?
Mick Taylor
Mick Taylor adds slide guitar to a Fats Domino cover, a track Rolling Stone said showed Sledge could rock as hard as any Louisiana R&B singer.