[78-L] Another one gone..Teddy Pendergrass

[David Lennick]

Jazz Promo Services wrote:
> *R&B singer Pendergrass dead in Pa. at 59
> 
> 
> */
> Posted: Jan 14, 2010 12:18 AM
> Updated: Jan 14, 2010 10:58 AM
> //
> /By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY
> AP Music Writer
> NEW YORK (AP) - R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass, who was one of the most 
> electric and successful figures in music until a car crash 28 years ago 
> left him in a wheelchair, has died of colon cancer. He was 59.
> 
> Pendergrass died Wednesday in suburban Philadelphia, where he had been 
> hospitalized for months.
> 
> The singer's son, Teddy Pendergrass II, said his father underwent colon 
> cancer surgery eight months ago and had "a difficult recovery."
> 
> Before the crash, Pendergrass established a new era of R&B with an 
> explosive, raw voice that symbolized masculinity, passion and the joys 
> and sorrow of romance in songs such as "Close the Door," ''It Don't Hurt 
> Now," ''Love T.K.O." and other hits that have since become classics.
> 
> He was an international superstar and sex symbol. His career was at its 
> apex - and still climbing.
> 
> Friend and longtime collaborator Kenny Gamble, of the renowned 
> production duo Gamble&Huff, teamed with Pendergrass on his biggest hits 
> and recalled how the singer was even working on a movie.
> 
> "He had about 10 platinumalbums in a row, so he was a very, very 
> successful recording artist and as a performing artist," Gamble said 
> Thursday. "He had a tremendous career ahead of him, and the accident 
> sort of got in the way of many of those plans."
> 
> Pendergrass, who was born in Philadelphia in 1950, suffered a spinal 
> cord injury in a 1982 car accident that left him paralyzed from the 
> waist down - still able to sing but without his signature power. The 
> image of the strong, virile lover was replaced with one that drew sympathy.
> 
> But instead of becoming bitter or depressed, Pendergrass created a new 
> identity - that as a role model, Gamble said.
> 
> "He never showed me that he was angry at all about his accident," Gamble 
> said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "In fact, he 
> was very courageous."
> 
> Pendergrass left a remarkable imprint on the music world as he ushered 
> in a new era in R&B with his fiery, sensual and forceful brand of soul 
> and his ladies' man image, burnished by his strikingly handsome looks.
> 
> Gamble said Pendergrass was one of a kind as an artist and boasted a 
> powerful voice and "a great magnetism."
> 
> "He was a great baritone singer, and he had a real smooth sound, but he 
> had a real rough sound, too, when he wanted to exert power in his 
> voice," Gamble said.
> 
> But it wasn't Pendergrass' voice that got him his break in the music 
> business - it was his drum playing abilities. He met Harold Melvin, who 
> was looking for replacement members for his group, the Blue Notes, and 
> signed on to be the drummer. Later, he became the lead singer of the 
> group, which became known as Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
> 
> The band started working with Gamble and Leon Huff and had signature 
> hits in the early 1970s with "Wake Up Everybody" and "If You Don't Know 
> Me by Now."
> 
> But Pendergrass had creative differences with Melvin and soon left for 
> asolo career, according to his Web site. It was then he would become a 
> sex symbol for the R&B genre, working women into a frenzy with hits such 
> as "Only You" and concerts dedicated for ladies only.
> 
> "The females," Gamble said, "loved Teddy Pendergrass. The females were 
> very attracted to him and his music."
> 
> Unlike the songs of many of today's male R&B crooners, Pendergrass' 
> music bordered on eroticism without explicit lyrics or coarse language - 
> just through the raw emotion in his voice. "Turn Off the Lights" was a 
> tune that perhaps best represented the many moods of Pendergrass - 
> tender and coaxing yet strong as the song reaches its climax.
> 
> Fans were devastated when, at age 31, Pendergrass was critically injured 
> after his Rolls-Royce hit a tree. He spent six months in a hospital and 
> returned to recording the next year with the album "Love Language."
> 
> He continued to sing and recorded several albums, receiving Grammy 
> nominations; perhaps his best-known hit after his crash was the 
> inspirational song "Life is a Song Worth Singing."
> 
> "To all his fans who loved his music, thank you," his son said. "He will 
> live on through his music."
> 
> It was 19 years before Pendergrass resumed performing at his own 
> concerts. He made his return on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, with two 
> sold-out shows in Atlantic City, N.J.
> 
> Gamble noted Pendergrass' charitable work for people with spinal cord 
> injuries, his performances despite pain and his focus on the positive in 
> the face of great challenges.
> 
> "He used to say something in his act in the wheelchair, 'Don't let the 
> wheelchair fool you,' because he still proclaimed he was a lover," 
> Gamble said.
> 
> But his career was never the same. Gamble said it was difficult for 
> Pendergrass to project vocally like he once did: "The breathing aspect 
> of it, he wasn't really able to deal with it."
> 
> And while he had albums, he was no longer seen as the sex symbol but 
> more of a sympathetic, tragic figure, even though he still had a strong 
> following among his core female fans.
> 
> After the accident, he dedicated much of his life to helping others with 
> spinal cord injuries and founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance to do 
> just that. Gamble said he wanted to help others.
> 
> "In his quiet moments, he probably did a lot of reflection. But I never 
> saw him pity himself. He stayed busy," Gamble said. "(But) I feel that 
> he's in a better place now. ... He doesn't have to go through that pain 
> or whatever he was going through anymore."
> 
> ___
> 
> Associated Press writers Patrick Walters and Bob Lentz contributed to 
> this report from Philadelphia.
> 
>