PDogz said:

True statement! It also takes death to give songs a whole different meaning.

Identity said:

I think thats cool that the family will allow his fans to pay their respects...I get a lil pissed when someone famous pass and the family won't allow the people that made them sucessful pay their respects

VenusBlingBling said:

And this one too....



That's the thing about the old school artists, they expressed different aspects of life, not the same thing over and over. You could get your sexy or get your dance on, but they could also make people think.

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - 'The Love I Lost'

My favorite TP vocals are on this soulful gem and the elegiac "The Whole Town's Laughing At Me".
[Edited 1/14/10 18:55pm]

DesireeNevermind said:

Ahem...Soul!

*old school public service announcement*

babynoz said:

TP had a professionally elegant website at http://www.teddypendergra...ymain.html

PDogz said:

An estimated 50,000 people died in the disaster. Hundreds of thousands are still missing, injured, still trapped. Aide is not getting through to hungry, hurt, shaken people. A public health disaster is in the making, with an inability to bury the dead appropriately-the spread of disease is eminent. My dear Haitian American friend is overwhelmed with grief, still not having heard word from her Grandmother, brother or sister. Haitians like her are all around this country, distraught and overwhelmed.

So yes, Teddy isn't getting a lot of attention, but please, have some perspective.
[Edited 1/14/10 19:03pm]
[Edited 1/14/10 19:09pm]

How come this thread isn't a sticky?

funkpill said:

Just opened up iTunes...

funkpill said:

I know I asked that hours ago.

Identity said:

Thanks Id, this made me smile, cool web.

YES this needs to be a sticky. Where's luv4u at or June7?

mcw00 said:

With all respect to the tragedy in Haiti, I don't think Teddy would have gotten much coverage whether the earthquake happened or not. Great black artists die all the time with little or no fanfare from mainstream media. Just look at CNN.com's Entertainment headlines. Teddy is listed after a nameless Indie rocker.

Clooney, other celebs to join Haiti telethon
2010: The 'year of plus'?
Conan, Jay sling jokes
Indie rocker found dead at 29
R&B singer Pendergrass dead

http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/?hpt=Sbin

So let's please keep the focus of this thread on honoring a legend.
[Edited 1/14/10 23:38pm]

bellanoche said:

So true. Keep the focus on Teddy in this thread people.

One of my favorites from the Harold Melvin Days

bellanoche said:

TD3 said:

I like looking at this black & white photo because it captures him in a quiet, serene moment. Something I hadn't noticed before: there was a nobility to him, perhaps it was the beard or because he had full mastery of his craft.

The pain of missing him is beginning to set in.
[Edited 1/14/10 22:47pm]

Identity said:

I couldn't have said that better!

Teddy had so many hits that its ridiculous. These songs are timeless. Another of my favs:



And I will NEVER get tired of this one.



Prince played this a few times with Shelby singing lead, and Re-run used to get down to it on What's Happening.



Real soul music

Teddy Pendergrass timeline

1950 (March 26): Theodore DeReese Pendergrass is born to Ida and Jesse Pendergrass in Philadelphia. Pendergrass' father leaves his only son after a couple of years.

1960 (age 10): Pendergrass was ordained as a junior minister in a North Philadelphian church. He also sings at the church to respective audiences.

1962 (age 12): Teddy's father Jesse Pendergrass, absent for most of his only son's early years, is murdered.

Mid-1960s: After catching Jackie Wilson onstage, Teddy begins his dream to become an R&B star.

1967 (age 17): Teddy drops out of the 11th grade to pursue his music star dreams.

1968 (age 18): Teddy eventually auditions and lands a role as drummer for popular 1950s doo-wop group the Cadillacs. Pendergrass experiences life on the road as a road musician.

1970 (age 20): After spotting him playing drums at a show, Harold Melvin, founder of the struggling doo-wop group the Blue Notes, asks him to join their band as a drummer, which he agrees. Within two years, however, Pendergrass is asked to replace a departing lead singer in the group and soon is landed the lead singing role in the Blue Notes.

1972: After a successful audition to Philadelphia International, Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff signs the act, altering the name of the group from The Blue Notes to Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Despite this giving Harold top billing, Gamble & Huff began working on songs primarily for lead singer Pendergrass. That September, their first album, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, is released and features the hits "I Miss You" and the title track, which becomes a number-two pop hit. From then on until 1976, Pendergrass and the group score hits such as "The Love I Lost", "Where Are All My Friends", "Hope That We Can Be Together Soon", "Weak for You", "Bad Luck", "Wake Up Everybody" and "Don't Leave Me This Way" becoming a popular pop-soul act.

1976: After a period of tension, Pendergrass abruptly leaves the Blue Notes for a solo career. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were essentially dropped from the label.

1977: Pendergrass' debut album, Teddy Pendergrass, becomes double platinum with the releases of "I Don't Love You Anymore" and "The Whole Town's Laughing at Me". He scores some radio airplay with "The More I Get, The More I Want" and "You Can't Hide From Yourself". Within weeks after the album's release, Pendergrass sells out Carnegie Hall.

1978: Life Is A Song Worth Singing is released and hits number-one on the R&B chart brought on by the success of singles "Only You" and his pop breakthrough, "Close the Door". The album sells over two million copies. The same year Pendergrass made music history by hosting women-only concerts in the U.S. The concerts sell out within minutes.

1979: The Teddy album is released and continues Pendergrass' rise yielded by the smash hits "Turn Off the Lights" and "Come Go With Me". The same year, Pendergrass released the popular Live! Coast to Coast album. Both albums go double platinum.

1980: Pendergrass' fifth release, TP, is released and much like the four previous, goes on to sell two million copies making Pendergrass the first black artist to score five multi-platinum albums in a row. The album becomes a hit thanks to the hits "Love TKO" and "Can't We Try?"

1981: Pendergrass' hit streak continues with It's Time for Love, which goes platinum thanks to singles such as "You're My Latest and Greatest Inspiration" and "I Can't Live Without Your Love".

1982 (March 18): Just days before his 32nd birthday, Teddy suffers from a near-fatal car crash while driving to his home in Philadelphia. After the clash, Pendergrass' spinal cord was shattered leaving him paraplegic. His label quickly puts out his seventh album, This One's for You, but it flops, sparking the beginning of the end of his tenure with Philadelphia International.

1983: Philadelphia International puts out Teddy's eighth and final album with the label, Heaven Only Knows, which also flops. Upon Pendergrass' return to the studio to record new material, the singer was dropped from PIR in 1984.

1984: Signed to Elektra's Asylum Records label, Pendergrass releases the popular album, Love Language, which returns him to the pop top 40 going gold thanks to the release of the Whitney Houston duet, "Hold Me". The duet is the first recording to be released by the then-newbie Houston, reaching number 46 pop and number 5 R&B.

1985 (July 7): Three years after his accident, a wheelchair-bound and emotional Pendergrass returns to the stage in front of an audience of a billion in Philadelphia for Live Aid accompanied by Ashford & Simpson. The trio perform the hit "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" to an accepting audience.

1988: Pendergrass releases the Joy album three years after his last album. The title track becomes Pendergrass' second number-one hit as a solo artist on the R&B charts. He had four number-one R&B hits during his work with Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. He'll score one more R&B number-one, "It Should've Been You" three years later.

1993: The album, A Little More Magic, is released. The album features Pendergrass' final R&B top 40 hit, "Believe in Love".

1996: Pendergrass returns on the road as a cast member of the play, "Your Arm's Too Short to Box With God".

1997: Pendergrass releases his fourteenth album, You and I.

1998: The Christmas album, This Christmas I'd Rather Have Love, become Pendergrass' fifteenth album.

2002: Pendergrass' sixteenth and final album in his lifetime, From Teddy with Love, is from his comeback to live performances following a 19-year absence from the road.

2006: Pendergrass announces his retirement from show business after a career spanning more than 35 years. He briefly performs a year later commemorating the 25th anniversary since the car accident that nearly took his life.

2010 (January 13): After a six-month struggle from colon cancer, Theodore DeReese Pendergrass, Sr. succumbs from his complications at 9:50 p.m. in a Philadelphia hospital. Pendergrass was just 59 years old.
[Edited 1/15/10 0:11am]

banks said:

purplepolitician said:

I know what you mean.We've lost so many R&B legends in this decade.Barry White,Luther Vandross,Isaac Hayes,James Brown,Rick James,Michael Jackson(!!) and now Teddy Pendergrass

babynoz said:[quote]

VenusBlingBling said:

Exactly! That's why I mainly listen to Old School artists.Their albums had substance,from one song to the next.They had something to say in their music.

don't really know who he is...other than a singer but RIP

missmad said:

Play the videos then.

Timmy84 said:

haha ok

really soulful voice man very cool

Identity said:

I was on there yesterday.