iPlay: Teddy Pendergrass (1950-2010)

Life has a way of changing your plans. So does death. Ironically, with all that is currently going on in Haiti, I had the intention to post about such a thing. Death. And I still am… kinda. So maybe you should ignore what I just said.


The first time I ever heard Teddy Pendergrass, he was with a group called Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes. The song I’m featuring is the first song I’d heard from him. I remember wanting to sit by my mother’s record player and cry. The emotion from the song, the sheer wailing and yelling from his voice. You could literally hear him pulling the hair from his chest as he begged this woman of his to come back to him. When you can convey that type of emotion just from singing, it is ethnically called “sangin’”. “Singing” a song means hitting all the notes in a melodic fashion. “Sangin’” is a slap-yo-momma, burn-down-the-house, drink-yourself-to-sleep-type experience. Sangin’ makes you do this. Sangin’ comes from your toes, your heart, and your soul all at the same time. Sangin’ is an out-of-body incident. Teddy P. could sang.

Teddy P., as he is affectionately called in every black household in ‘Merica, is an iconic man. His young, personal life came into question when he was paralyzed due to some suspicious circumstances. Legend has it that one night he picked up a transsexual prostitute in a drunken stupor, then crashed his car due to failed breaks, ultimately leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. (And, can I say, celebrities led such interesting lives, even in those days.)

You will be missed. (“Don’t hurt ‘em, Teddy P.!” –Sherman Clump, The Nutty Professor)

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Artist: Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes/Teddy Pendergrass (lead vocals)
Song: I Miss You
Album: The Essential Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (2004)
FEAR says: SANG TEDDY P.!