In Appreciation: Teddy Pendergrass

It must be stated upfront that I don't consider what I'm about to say here in this appreciation to be the definitive (by any stretch) word or proper dedication to Teddy Pendergrass. There are those of you who have faithfully followed Teddy's career throughout all of his phases as well as what can only be tragically described as the pre-accident career vs. the post-accident career.
My appreciation of Teddy Pendergrass comes from his time when he was a member of Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes. This period covers the years of 1972 through 1974. It is the period before he broke away from Harold Melvin to start his own solo career. It is the period which I lived through that I worship so much. It is also the period from before I made the switch to listening to FM radio as my primary radio listening source for music rather than AM.
You know, there must be a conspiracy by history or by angels that I'm being forced to write about things from the '72-'74 period when I was living back in Santa Clara once again before I feel like I'm properly ready to. I haven't even finished the Eugene '70-'72 period yet. Yet, here I am.
If Teddy Pendergrass had not walked the Earth during his time with Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, I am quite certain that the return to Santa Clara period that I love so dearly would have turned out much differently. His voice was so powerful. His was the voice of Soul music being funneled through by way of Gospel influence. I mean, he was right up there and so upfront. He wasn't to be denied. All of us have been so blessed to have been given the masculine side of great vocal talents like Pendergrass. He was another one of those singers with whom I felt a great affinity for in that it was o.k. to show off your masculinity in expression. Plus, if I ever went to far in thinking that I was going overboard on the whole Soul singer as straong male role model type, I always had somebody like the late Eugene Record of The Chi-Lites to remind me of the vulnerability that could be expressed by males as well.
From that great first album of Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, there was a song like "I Miss You" to show that there was indeed another side to be shown by the band and by extent Teddy.
For me, as for a huge amount of people around the world, it was when Gamble & Huff decided to release "If You Don't Know Me By Now" that put them on my musical map with a huge splash in the Fall of '72. I desperately needed something to anchor me that Fall because I was in the fearful throes of my dread for our 5th Grade teacher at St. Clare's who ruled our class like a tyrant. Teddy's vocals for the song gave me something I could hold onto and give me a strong-willed sense of consolation based on the sheer vocal force of his delivery.
My Mother had to have sensed something concerning my love of this song when I heard the song riding around in the car with her or when she would hear me listening to and attempting to sing along to it at home on Camino Drive or else it was one of those beautifully coincidental quirks of fate on her part that made her do it. I didn't say a word to her about the song. I never directed anything at her. Yet, Mom came home one fine day and said she had something for me that she picked up over at the record store over at Valley Fair. She got me my first Philadephia International Records single and it was "If You Don't Know Me By Now". For this occasion alone, Mom helped to cement this song into a certain high strata with me. She managed to help careen something along further without her even knowing it.
I would later come to know Teddy and his association with Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes through the great single in (I believe) 1973 with "The Love I Lost" and then in 1974 (again I believe) with "Wake Up Everybody". And that voice would stay ever so strong and so sure.
The great thing about great songs is that you don't remember them as just being fantastic songs. They become personalized in your life. I was to meet a woman at some point in either very late 1973 or early 1974 at a time when David G. and I would become friends for a good solid 4 years until the 5th shaky year when things began to fall apart. This woman was to become his Dad's wife (the third if I'm recalling correctly). For some incredibly strange and almost prophetic reason because they would later divorce, I would come to associate this wonderful person with whom I would (in combination) hold in my highest regard, respect and harbor a monumental crush that I've had on her that continues even to this very day to "If You Don't Know Me By Know". The single had passed its chart time by the time I met her and yet it seemed to come out of the air the very first time I met her and went for a ride with his gorgeous blonde Ann Margret named Pam with her very young son in a Lincoln Continental Mk IV that I would identify her with this song and her relationship to Gary. I have told her this. I told her back in the '90s and I think she just kind of shrugged it off because she tries to forget what she went through with Gary. I just don't think she realizes how accurately the song applies to her in the reverse. It is her who should have told him "what good is a love affair/ when you can't see eye to eye".
God! That song was so appropriate to listen to in the late Fall of '72 when the air was colder. It was also so appropriate for that day she and I drove around together from her house with Gary back over to my house on Camino. It was a cold, overcast foggy day. Plus, I would always view that relationship she had with Gary with the same coldness that sometimes seemd to show its face every so often when I would see the cracks in their marriage show throughout the '70s.
This is what I mean. Great music makes you see layers in life that you otherwise might never have noticed. Shit! I was seeing this kind of thing in 5th, 6th and 7th Grade. It became more obvious as I got older too.
To this day, it still amazes me as to how coincidental it was that I made the switch to FM radio in the Summer of '74 when I did and at the very subtle point in music history when a sea-change was about to occur that people were not going to notice right away. This changed happened just as Teddy Pendergrass made the decision to leave Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes to pursue his own solo career as a result of creative differences with the late Harold Melvin. I guess Teddy was fated to have a solo career. His voice was so powerful that people, myself included, would say something like "Hey man! There's Teddy" when a Harold Melvin song would come on. I have to be honest here and say this. I really miss the tension that was apparent in those old Bluenotes recordings. That's what made Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes so great. I didn't follow Teddy into his solo career because of my switch over to FM and my general tuning myself out of the danceable Soul music beginning to turn into what would become as Disco. I would hear Teddy later on and I would pine for the Bluenotes days. I will readily admit to that. This is going to be a terrible analogy, but my feelings towards Teddy Pendergrass are a lot like some cross-sections of fans of Janis Joplin have felt about her over the years. You'll get the people who'll say that Janis was at her best when she was part of a team when she was in Big Brother & the Holding Company. I have to admit, I really think Teddy was at his best when he was with Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes and he was a member of a team and winning a championship of sorts as a result. We all now about sports teams who won championships who had members who beat the shit out of each other in the locker room and still managed to win championships (like those Oakland A's teams of the '70s). Now, I don't know if it was quite like that between Harold and Teddy nor to what extent. I suppose only Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff truely know. I would like to think that they are both at peace with each other in all regards now that they have been reunited and that they have some fine plans ahead for the rest of us.
What I am greatly happy for the most for Teddy is that he is now out of his wheelchair. I am also happy that he no longer has colon cancer to go along with being bound to a wheelchair. Do you imagine the terrible ordeal this must have been for him even though he put on a good face? I really hope that he and the late Curtis Mayfield are trading notes on their experiences on having been bound to chairs late in their lives and I hope they are both celebrating thier freedom.
Like Curtis, I hope Teddy knows that he deserves the freedom he has found because he gave all of us fans so much freedom through his expression in music. Walk tall, Teddy. You made all of us walk tall. My God! Even God Himself must be overwhelmed to have both you and Levi Stubb singing in the same room together. Thank you so much for everything, Teddy. We love you.