SHEFFIELD – Quin Ivy invited Percy Sledge to stop by his record store in 1965 after a friend of his told him that this orderly over at the hospital had a pretty good singing voice. Ivy, who was a disk jockey at WLAY-AM 1450 and owned a little place called Tune Town where kids could buy 45rpm records, had recently finished putting the last touches on his little recording studio across the street from the record store.
“Why don’t you come on by sometime?” said Quin. Percy told him that he would like to come by that afternoon, and later in the day swung by. Quin gave him a short tour of the studio, and “The rest,” as they say, “is history.”
They loaded a Hammond B3 into the back of a pickup truck, rolled it into the studio. Got Roger Hawkins, Marlin Greene, Spooner Oldham, Junior Lowe, Donna Jean Thatcher (Godchaux)… (Are these names sounding familiar?)… and recorded “When A Man Loves A Woman”.
On Tuesday a historical marker was unveiled at the site of the little studio. The building is gone. Well-wishers who were there to see Percy and Quin filled the street. When the historical marker was unveiled, there was a big round of applause for the two men who did so much for their city. There is also a footnote to the unveiling. Across 2nd Street, the City of Sheffield placed the original Tune Town sign in the old storefront. Quin was really surprised to see it, and had all the original folks line up around the sign to have photos taken.
The Quad-Cities Daily was on hand to record the day in EVENT PHOTOS and we present them here. Make yourself a print of some of these historic images. Please NO COMMERCIAL USES! Thanks.
There will be some video published at a later date. Photos by Sheri Wiggins.
2 comments
Great to see, I’d love to have been there too. Thanks for the photos and report.
where’s MARLIN GREENE??? “Without Marlin Greene there would be NO Percy Sledge” Percy Sledge