Percy Sledge heads to the CdA Casino

The career of Percy Sledge always will be defined by “When a Man Love a Woman,” a hit as recognizable today as it was in 1966.

The song’s lyrics and Sledge’s aggressive delivery are among the most hallowed moments in rock history.

The track has become bigger than Sledge could have imagined during his days as a hospital orderly, before making it big with his first and biggest hit.

As painful as it is to resign Sledge to one-hit-wonderland, it is accepted that without “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Sledge would not have been that voice at the high school dance; he would not be looked to as one of the most memorable voices in pop music; he would never have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and he probably couldn’t have sustained an active touring schedule, which brings him to the Coeur d’Alene Casino on Thursday.

“Percy Sledge’s very first recording was far and away his biggest, but what a recording it was,” Rolling Stone wrote earlier this year, before he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Sledge admits he never outdid “When a Man Loves a Woman,” but he isn’t sure that it’s possible.

“Of course, every artist would like to have another record like that,” he told the magazine. “In the history of music, I don’t think there’s ever been two of those.”

Sledge also is proud of his post-“Woman” catalogue, which makes up the majority of his career. “Warm and Tender” and “It Tears Me Up” also made the charts in 1966, and “Take Time to Know Her” cracked the R&B charts in 1968.

“Every time I went into the studio, I always sung with my heart,” he said. “If it came out as strong, as good, as powerful as that to my fans, then I was satisfied. I never slacked. I always did all the songs the same way as the first.”

And Sledge has yet to close the book on his catalogue.

“Shining Through the Rain,” released last year, is Sledge’s first album of new material since 1994’s “It Was Blue Night.”

“We wanted to bring a little more of a contemporary vibe into the arena, without losing the feeling of a Percy Sledge record,” Barry Goldberg, one of the album’s producers, said on Sledge’s Web site.

For Sledge, getting back into the studio was an emotional experience.

“When I first listened to the finished version,” he said on his site, “I couldn’t help but cry.”