TEDDY PENDERGRASS: REMEMBERING PHILLY'S R&B KING

Teddy Pendergrass would have been 67 today. Anyone who saw him onstage during those legendary Ladies Only concerts will tell you that TP was one of the best who ever did it. But for those who missed out, how do you explain the legacy of a singer whose greatest success came before urban music’s tanning of America?   

Back in the mid to late seventies, Philly had the game on lock. Gamble and Huff jump started the R&B joint venture game with a partnership with CBS Records establishing Philadelphia International Records. 

 PIR urged listeners to "understand while you dance" with message oriented music that spoke directly to the community. The content extended beyond the subject matter radius  common in today's music. Before hip hop's infatuation with secret societies, songs like Rich Get Richer unveiled class warfare instigated by America's oldest and wealthiest families.

 A half a decade before Roots and forty years before 12 Years A Slave, the chilling nine minute Ship Ahoy unveiled the horrors of the Middle Passage from creaking slave ships to cracking whips.

                                        

 I'm Just A Prisoner captured the prison-industrial complex from the eyes of an individual struggling to adapt to a life of incarceration ("I got to fight to keep my manhood").

                                          

  

In the 1970s, TSOP was the soulful soundtrack when the Iron Curtain and Broad Street Bullies, Pirates and Phillies lifted the Keystone State to sports dominance. Although a doctor named Julius was renowned for making house calls for the Sixers, it was TP ---a homegrown superstar who was the true MVP of the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.

 Let's put things in perspective. Teddy Pendergrass was R&B king before Street Songs, Thriller and Purple Rain. Before BET and MTV video world premieres. Before Arsenio. Before auto tune smokescreens, backup dancers and brand marketing schemes, internet beef and hard luck back stories crafted to spark first week album sales. Pendergrass' success predated it all and he did it with only radio airplay and stage performances. Back then they called him the Black Elvis. By today's standards, he was the Jay-Z of his time. Either way, He was the definition of Black Star Power. 

His solo career was perfectly timed with Recording Institute Association of America's (RIAA) acknowledgement of the growing number of million-selling albums in the marketplace and upgrading their status from gold to platinum. In short order, Pendergrass spun off five of them in a row. When gold was the standard of excellence for urban artists, he became the first African American male to release consecutive multi-platinum selling albums replacing Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Al Green and Isaac Hayes as the top R&B male recording artist. Record companies recognized the potential commercial viability and sought out their own stars and lead singers of soul groups anticipated greener pastures and watched the throne.

Three decades before the arrival of the Gucci duffel bag boys and Kanye's self-proclaimed "Louis Vuitton Don" alter ego and  Tom Ford, Giuseppe Vannotti and Christian Louboutin brands found their way into urban circles, Teddy was already rocking custom clothing,  fly jewelry, fox fur coats and designer apparel.

Before the hip hop's infatuation with bling, Bentleys and black cards, Pendergrass’ 34-room mansion on Philly's prestigious Main Line housed a fleet of whips. He possessed an intense drive with an ego to match. Cocky and proud, he cowed before no one. When a car salesman at an upscale dealership questioned his purchasing power, Pendergrass slammed his record contract on the table before walking out the door with the keys to a new Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.

He started from the bottom. A product of North Philly's hard knock life who became the original R&B king. Armed with a husky baritone, the Teddy Bear redefined the image of the soul singer. He turned out the lights on Barry White's plush seduction and Al Green's percussive love poetry driving women crazy. Pendergrass' virile image even resonated with a preteen Janet Jackson who fawned over his album covers. His Live! Coast to Coast album featured a radio interview that captured his sex appeal.

                           

Just a few years removed from his teens, Pendergrass first made his mark with legendary Philly quintet Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Specializing in smooth harmonies and elegant stagecraft, they were modern day troubadours sang like they had the weight of the world of their shoulders.

The Blue Notes were versatile R&B everymen capable of delivering material that addressed everything from fractured relationships (“If You Don’t Know Me By Now & I Miss You") to fair-weather friends (“Where Are All My Friends”). They bemoaned Black America’s fortunes in the face of political corruption and abandonment (“Bad Luck”). They left no stone unturned, even taking society to task, challenging it to create a better world while casting out fake preachers, shady businessmen and low-life drug pushers like biblical money changers in the temple (“Wake Up Everybody”). 

                                  

                        

But unlike Smokey's tearful clown, the Blue Notes were battered but never broken. Bruised but never scarred. They reminded the listener that even in times of bad luck, a new day was just around the corner. They just didn’t make songs. They delivered sermons that featured Pendergrass' passionate vamps and ad libs pushing the material to another level of excitement.

At the Blue Notes peak, Pendergrass boldly stepped out on his own. During a time when it was career suicide to leave a successful group, Teddy blazed his own trail as a trendsetter.

Pendergrass songs like Turn Off The Lights and Come Go With Me were sensual on the surface but were powered by a raw sexuality causing groups like the Isley Brothers to take notice. No slouches in the slow jam department themselves, they retooled their own formula after hearing the Pendergrass chart topper Close The Door.

By the age of 31, Teddy racked up a series of accomplishments that would be considered a brand marketing portfolio today. Signature designer line? Check. TV commercials? Check.  Film soundtracks? Check. International tours? Check. Endorsements? Check. Cable pay-per-view concerts and movie roles? On the way.

 Teddy's tragic automobile accident in ’82 robbed him of his ability to follow through on opportunities that would have placed him further ahead of his contemporaries. Instead they watched the throne, followed the blueprint and reaped major rewards, filling the vacancy TP left behind.

 Jeffrey Osborne and Lionel Richie were first out the gate. Ex-front men for LTD and the Commodores seeking greener pastures, they parlayed their charismatic voices into mainstream success beyond their R&B audience with Richie becoming an instant pop superstar.

Long time contemporary Peabo Bryson made the transition from R&B to Top 40 airplay culminating in a long career with  back-to-back Grammy Song of the Year awards.

Alexander O'Neal took his act on the road, selling out UK's Wembley Stadium for six straight nights delivering swaggering up tempos and ballads that Pendergrass handled with ease. Freddie Jackson dominated urban radio with a string of seven straight number one singles.


 Pendergrass' career rise demonstrated the commercial viability of R&B male vocalist. As record labels mined their own rosters for suitable competitors, they also benchmarked the Gamble and Huff formula developing their own departments targeting black audiences. 
Ironically, Philly International's contract with CBS expired just as Pendergrass' momentum slowed. With deeper pockets and no need for continued outsourcing, CBS were able to directly sign artists. Two of these artists would go on to build on and surpass TP's career accomplishments.

Luther Vandross emerged from the background achieving major success exclusively on the strength of R&B airplay and sales. Legend has it that Vandross was initially passed over by PIR before signing with CBS. He would extend Pendergrass' record-setting sales with a platinum run of his own that lasted a decade cementing his reputation as the Eighties' preeminent male R&B vocalist. Ironically, he would write and produce Pendergrass post-accident comeback single.

                                                                    

 

 Passing through both of  the Motown-Philly hit factories, Michael Jackson enjoyed the best of both worlds. Growing from boy-to-man, he established himself as a solo vehicle apart from the family act becoming the biggest superstar on the planet, igniting R&B's Great Black Pop Takeover.

 The aesthetic of black music also changed by '82. Teddy's bare chested, baritone belting over lush instrumentation was replaced with smooth tenor voices crooning to programmed drum beats and synthesizers (''Rock Me Tonight"), soft piano notes ("A House Is Not A Home") and swooping productions ("Tonight I Celebrate My Love").

Teddy would reemerge, trading in power for refinement. Pulling from the more seductive components of his live shows and Philly gems It Don't Hurt Now and You're My Latest Greatest Inspiration, he delivered a new round of gold albums and number one singles. He introduced the world to Whitney Houston and established a philanthropic foundation, proving that you can be down but never out.

These days, husky baritones Johnny Gill, Jaheim, Christopher Williams and the late Gerald Levert are the closest alternatives to falsetto and tenor voices defining millennial soul.  They get the job done but do little to fill the void created by the Teddy Bear. Thankfully, his legacy remains intact as a seminal performer who opened doors for others to walk through.

                                

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--- For Joan Pendergrass.