♫Musical Oasis♫: SPOTLIGHT! TEDDY PENDERGRASS

Thursday, March 24

If you're alive - you know who Teddy Pendergrass is. But just in case you don't - I've located a very good description of his life and career.

~ The consummate African American sex symbol of the 1970s music scene, Teddy Pendergrass gained unparalleled adulation from female fans for his suggestive crooning and his women-only concerts at which teddy bears were passed out to audience members.

Pendergrass was born in Philadelphia on March 26, 1950. His mother named him Theodore, which means "gift from God," because she had suffered six previous miscarriages. His father Jesse, who had left the family and moved in with another woman, was murdered when Pendergrass was 12. As a young man, Pendergrass was ordained as a minister and he followed a religious lifestyle. His first exposure to secular music occurred in his early teens when his mother, who worked at a Philadelphia supper club, let him play some of the club's musical instruments. Pendergrass soon taught himself to play several instruments and he joined several local musical groups in Philadelphia.

n 1969, Pendergrass received his first big break when he signed on as the drummer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, a Philadelphia soul group. When the Blue Notes' lead vocalist left the group the following year, Pendergrass replaced him and brought a new level of fame to the group. The Philadelphia soul sound pioneered by producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff during the 1970s combined a down-to-earth intensity with a more lyrical, mellow side. Pendergrass's baritone voice was vigorous, yet smooth, and was well-suited to the Philadelphia soul sound. Blue Notes hits such as "If You Don't Know Me By Now" and "The Love I Lost" made Pendergrass a singing sensation and helped to launch his solo career.

Pendergrass released his debut solo album, Teddy Pendergrass, in 1977. Two singles from the album, "I Don't Love You Any More" and the ballad "The Whole Town's Laughing at Me," were modest hits. However, it was only when Pendergrass began to be marketed as a sex symbol that his career really took off. When he performed in concert, Pendergrass would launch into spectacular vocal outbursts that delighted throngs of adoring female fans. Many of these fans threw underwear on stage and reveled in his tank-top attire and seductive stage routines. Concerts were often billed as "Ladies Only" affairs and, in one notorious incident, one woman shot another after a struggle over Pendergrass's sweat-soaked head scarf.

For a time, Pendergrass was arguably the most popular male star in R&B music. However, his life would be changed forever on the night of March 18, 1982, when the brakes on his Rolls-Royce failed, causing the car to hit a metal guardrail, cross into oncoming traffic, and ram into a tree. Pendergrass suffered a broken neck, a crushed spinal cord, and damage to vital nerves. He was unconscious for eight days and, when he regained consciousness, he realized that he was paralyzed below the waist and would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

His voice weakened by the crash but imbued with new emotional depth, Pendergrass slowly returned to work. In 1984, he released his first album since the accident. The album, Love Language, thrilled and inspired his many fans, and was certified platinum for sales of one million copies. Pendergrass made a live appearance at the Live Aid charity concert in 1985 and his 1988 album, Joy, put him back atop the R&B charts. Ron Wynn, in his review of Joy for the All-Music Guide, observed that Pendergrass "sang in a slower, somber yet appealing way quite different from the swaggering, openly sexual, macho posturing of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was a weary but not beaten Pendergrass, whose manner and delivery underscored the resilient theme in Joy's lyrics."

With the constant support of his wife and his mother, Pendergrass has far exceeded the expectations of his doctors, who had predicted that Pendergrass would live only ten years after the accident. He kept up a moderate schedule of recording and touring, releasing the albums Truly Blessed (1991), You & I (1997), and This Christmas, I'd Rather Have Love (1998), and touring with the traveling company of the gospel musical Your Arms Too Short to Box with God in 1996. He founded the Pendergrass Institute for Music and Performing Arts to assist aspiring performers, and also supported causes that championed the rights of the disabled.

(Answers.com)