Source: Guardian Newspaper (Nigeria)
With the death on January 13, of Theodore DeReese Pendergrass, best known as Teddy Pendergrass or TP, the American music industry lost one of its more notable voices and artistes. Teddy Pendergrass was a multiple Grammy Award nominee, winner of Billboard and American Music Awards, an artist of the very first rank, and one of the leading lights on America's soul and R&B music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, beginning with his chance role ( he had been hired to play the drums) as lead singer for the Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes Band. His richly coarse and powerful baritone voice was an unmistakable signature in such classics as 'Wake up Everybody', 'Don't leave me this Way', and 'If you don't Know me by Now'. Pendergrass was obviously the soul of the Harold Melvin Band. He soon got tired of the inequity of hiding his name under Melvin's, so in 1977, he embarked on a solo career with the launch of the album simply and provocatively titled 'TP'. It was the beginning of an extraordinary career.
There was no looking back thenceforth as he notched up with well received albums every year until 1981, including the exciting 'Live Coast to Coast' (1979). In just about five years of a roaringly successful solo career, TP established himself forever as one of the great makers of love songs in the American music industry.
Close to 10 of his albums went Platinum. He was the first African-American male singer to produce five Platinum albums in a row. It is to his credit also that his successful move into a solo career inspired and emboldened not a few lead singers, albeit with different levels of success.
Teddy Pendergrass was a ladies' man with his good looks, and he as well exploited the combination of sex appeal and passion-filled love ballads to boost his music and stage performances. Yet, while his lyrics skirted the edge of eroticism, they could hardly be termed explicit or raw. More than being a music idol, he was a sex symbol and, at his concert performances, he could work women into such frenzy they would reportedly struggled to lay their hands on a TP memento. He relished and responded to this adulation by holding, occasionally, 'women's only' concerts. Love, in its varied forms of expression, was a recurring theme in his songs ('The Love I Lost', 'Love TKO', 'Close the Door', 'I Don't Love You anymore', Turn Off the Lights', 'Don't Leave Me This Way', 'Don't Keep Wasting My Time') and his fans, as well as the larger audience simply loved it - and him - for it.
Teddy Pendergrass belonged to that exceptional, but, sadly, disappearing group of African-American ballad singers (Barry White, Isaac Hayes) who, through their music in the '70s and the '80s, showed a spiritual connection with their African roots in such a way that Africans everywhere could, understand, feel, and relate to the lyrics and/or the beat. Coming shortly after the civil rights movement of the 60s, the music of Teddy Tendergrass and others in the same class further helped to promote black consciousness and identity. TP and his kind in the American music industry showed their generation how to do things differently - sing, love, and dance.
In March 1982, Teddy Pendergrass' ascent was interrupted by a car accident, in circumstances that left him paralysed from the waist down. This was the major test of his life: the incident weakened his voice, his doctors said he might never sing again, and that he had only ten years to live. Besides, his seductive stage showmanship was ended for good. He was at the peak of his career, and yet everything came crashing down in one instant. The singer admitted in his autobiography, Truly Blessed (1998), contemplating suicide. Rather than lose the will to live, however, Teddy Pendergrass, with the love and support of his wife and his mother, sought expert medical help, worked on his voice and, though confined to a wheelchair, released, two years later, the album 'Love Language'. It earned him another Platinum award.
It was an affirmation of love and of life, the triumph of the human spirit over life's vicissitudes. This point Teddy would repeatedly make one way or the other subsequently. For instance, his 2007 live concert was tagged 'Teddy 25: A Celebration of Life, Hope, and Possibilities'. Said his friend and professional collaborator, Kenny Gamble, 'I never saw him pity himself. He stayed busy'.
TP went on to release other records including the inspiring 'Life is a Song worth Singing'. In 1984, he did a duet, "Hold Me", with the then little-known Whitney Houston. He also established the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance to help people with spinal cord injuries. In 1985, he participated in the Live Aid charity concert. In 2001, he did live shows that were sold out but he admitted this took a huge toll on him. Before his death, he was working on a musical documentary of his life titled 'I am who I am'.
He could no longer prance about on stage, but singing from a wheelchair, his musical influence remained strong. He will continue to be remembered for his originality and courage, as much as for the central lesson of his career: the need to strike a proper balance between career success and a private life of dalliance to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell the richly gifted TP.
There was no looking back thenceforth as he notched up with well received albums every year until 1981, including the exciting 'Live Coast to Coast' (1979). In just about five years of a roaringly successful solo career, TP established himself forever as one of the great makers of love songs in the American music industry.
Close to 10 of his albums went Platinum. He was the first African-American male singer to produce five Platinum albums in a row. It is to his credit also that his successful move into a solo career inspired and emboldened not a few lead singers, albeit with different levels of success.
Teddy Pendergrass was a ladies' man with his good looks, and he as well exploited the combination of sex appeal and passion-filled love ballads to boost his music and stage performances. Yet, while his lyrics skirted the edge of eroticism, they could hardly be termed explicit or raw. More than being a music idol, he was a sex symbol and, at his concert performances, he could work women into such frenzy they would reportedly struggled to lay their hands on a TP memento. He relished and responded to this adulation by holding, occasionally, 'women's only' concerts. Love, in its varied forms of expression, was a recurring theme in his songs ('The Love I Lost', 'Love TKO', 'Close the Door', 'I Don't Love You anymore', Turn Off the Lights', 'Don't Leave Me This Way', 'Don't Keep Wasting My Time') and his fans, as well as the larger audience simply loved it - and him - for it.
Teddy Pendergrass belonged to that exceptional, but, sadly, disappearing group of African-American ballad singers (Barry White, Isaac Hayes) who, through their music in the '70s and the '80s, showed a spiritual connection with their African roots in such a way that Africans everywhere could, understand, feel, and relate to the lyrics and/or the beat. Coming shortly after the civil rights movement of the 60s, the music of Teddy Tendergrass and others in the same class further helped to promote black consciousness and identity. TP and his kind in the American music industry showed their generation how to do things differently - sing, love, and dance.
In March 1982, Teddy Pendergrass' ascent was interrupted by a car accident, in circumstances that left him paralysed from the waist down. This was the major test of his life: the incident weakened his voice, his doctors said he might never sing again, and that he had only ten years to live. Besides, his seductive stage showmanship was ended for good. He was at the peak of his career, and yet everything came crashing down in one instant. The singer admitted in his autobiography, Truly Blessed (1998), contemplating suicide. Rather than lose the will to live, however, Teddy Pendergrass, with the love and support of his wife and his mother, sought expert medical help, worked on his voice and, though confined to a wheelchair, released, two years later, the album 'Love Language'. It earned him another Platinum award.
It was an affirmation of love and of life, the triumph of the human spirit over life's vicissitudes. This point Teddy would repeatedly make one way or the other subsequently. For instance, his 2007 live concert was tagged 'Teddy 25: A Celebration of Life, Hope, and Possibilities'. Said his friend and professional collaborator, Kenny Gamble, 'I never saw him pity himself. He stayed busy'.
TP went on to release other records including the inspiring 'Life is a Song worth Singing'. In 1984, he did a duet, "Hold Me", with the then little-known Whitney Houston. He also established the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance to help people with spinal cord injuries. In 1985, he participated in the Live Aid charity concert. In 2001, he did live shows that were sold out but he admitted this took a huge toll on him. Before his death, he was working on a musical documentary of his life titled 'I am who I am'.
He could no longer prance about on stage, but singing from a wheelchair, his musical influence remained strong. He will continue to be remembered for his originality and courage, as much as for the central lesson of his career: the need to strike a proper balance between career success and a private life of dalliance to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell the richly gifted TP.
1 Feedback:
He will be missed..............
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