Artist: Teddy Pendergrass
LP: Life Is a Song Worth Singing
A few years ago my friend Melissa and I were walking into Fred Meyer when we saw a father/toddler combo coming out of the store. The kid had been stuffed into a hip little Jimmy Hendrix t-shirt, and Melissa and I resolved then that we would jump on the bandwagon by designing and selling our own line of rock-n-roll t-shirts for infants and small children that would feature Teddy Pendergrass.
At Teddy Pendergrass' for-women-only concerts in the 1970s, ticket buyers were given chocolate teddy-bear-shaped lollipops to lick during the show and the ladies in the audience would routinely throw teddy bears and underwear onto the stage while Pendergrass sang. One look at the cover of this record and it's easy to see why—though a frustrated Pendergrass reportedly insisted that there was much more to him than just his chest and crotch. I'd have to agree: there's also his lips, those bedroom eyes, that sexy scruffy beard, his hat...and if they'd turn him around I'd probably be adding a few more things to my list.
Born in Kingstree, South Carolina in 1950, Teddy Pendergrass' family moved to Philadelphia when he was young and it was there that he entered the music scene as singer for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. He went on to a solo career in the mid-'70s and became the first black male singer to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums. A car wreck in 1982 left Pendergrass paralyzed from the waist down and put a damper on his music career, though he did continue to perform and also founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance to help others suffering from spinal cord injuries. Sadly, Teddy Pendergrass died on Wendesday from colon cancer; he was only 59. You can read about Pendergrass here and find a nice obituary from The New York Times here and one from The Guardian here. These inspiring, life-affirming notes come from the inner sleve of his 1978 LP, "Life Is a Song Worth Living":
Teddy Pendergrass[March 26, 1950 — January 13, 2010]
We will miss you, Teddy.
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