Percy Sledge: The Venue, London

THE SIMPLISTIC idea that the fundamental difference between country and soul in the Sixties was that one music was made by poor whites in the Southern States and the other by poor blacks might well have been based on the evidence of Percy Sledge's immortal 'When A Man Loves A Woman', a song which would have served, say, Charlie Rich as well as 'Life's Little Ups And Downs' (written by Rich and his wife) later served Sledge.