Turn Off The Lights: Teddy's Dead

Teddy Pendergrass. If you don't know who he was, you would never guess by his name.

My first thoughts of Teddy were mixed feelings about the life of sweaty singer. He sang songs of seduction. I was a bit too young in body to work out all the romantic fantasies he sang during the time his songs were hitting. But I knew what he was talking about and I liked it. That was also true of Marvin Gaye so I immediately contrast him with Marvin Gaye. Marvin famously told us,

We're all sensitive people with so much to give,
understand me?
Since we've got to be, let's live!
I love you.
there's nothing wrong with me loving you
and giving yourself to me could never be wrong if the love is true. 

That's extraordinarily beautiful. It's philosophical and convincing.

Teddy on the other hand was urgency itself.

I'm lying here
waiting my dear
give me what I want
I'll give you what you need

and 

You got, you got, you got what I want
You got, you got, you got what I need

But like everyone else I misremember. The truth of Teddy is born in his music and it's a revelation to listen to it again after 30 years. Still, there are the impressions and memories of those days that don't go away.

 Everybody made jokes about the titles of Teddy's top hits, that read like a pimp's instruction manual. Come On And Go With Me. Close The Door. Turn Off The Lights. Perfect for the newly liberated Me Generation, when we got all glassy eyed about the instantaneous seductions of candlelight, wine, and a fireplace with a bearskin rug. Teddy was the man among the men that were the Bucks of Seduction. Issac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, Billy Paul, Leon Haywood,  Smokey Robinson and Barry White. He was tall, dark and handsome. He wore the open silk shirts, the slim gold chains, the ivory colored suits, the full beard and the million dollar smile. This is the Teddy Pendergrass I remember. 

Teddy was one of those great singers that somehow got into music under bogus management. It used to twist our heads around to understand that it was Michael Henderson that was singing 'Starship' on the Norman Connors album. And so it was that the solo singing from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes was not Harold Melvin. It was Teddy's voice that made everything work. Under Harold Melvin, there were great songs that still move you. The Love I Lost, Wake Up Everybody, Bad Luck, I Hope That We Can Be Together Soon, all magical, richly emotional songs. And when R&B wants to get emotional, in the seventies that mean a big black sweaty man shouting. Teddy Pendergrass punctuated his songs with that kind of earthly primal bellowing that had no equal then or now. In every one of his greatest hits, Teddy turns to the mic, breaks verse and grunts out an exclamation that kicks you in the gut. It's almost everything I can remember and that you can remember if you remember Teddy.

It was that unidimensionality of black male sexuality in song that turned me off. Don't get me wrong, I loved Teddy as much as anybody, but his lusty imprimatur became a caricature to me after a time. We all knew that he could sing Turn Off The Lights at a concert, get to the grunt 'Turn 'em off!' and be inundated with panties from the audience. It became a cliche. Like the nasal 'well' and 'ow' in the funk voice of the same period in American culture there came a point at which we desperately needed some diversity. And not long after the decline and fall of TP we were delivered into a new era of soul singing by Al Jarreau and Luther Vandross after a short transition period given by Ray Parker, all three smooth singers with none of Pendergrass' jagged edges. 

But looking back at Teddy from the perspective of this past metrosexual decade and the continued feminization of the American male, I desperately miss him. The raw honesty of his voice, the unapologetic attitude. Teddy was a man unafraid of being a man. You could never imagine him walking on tiptoes. We all felt cheated when Teddy wrecked. We were left with Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson. Because whereas Teddy could be tender and sensitive when the moment called for it, that was all the others were capable. That rather says it all. Those who followed sung sad imitations of the stuff you really want to hear when you are slow dancing. We had to let it go, just like his last big hit Love TKO. Let it go.

Any time I start talking about the status of black culture in all its manifestations, there are several laments I tend to narrate. One of them is the change in popular music for the worse. And I tend to go directly to the death of the romantic duet - something that I poignantly felt during the days I was ready for finding the last woman I would love. Where were Ashford and Simpson? What about Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway? Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell? Even some Peaches & Herb would be better than what was going on in the 90s. It got to the point where the only duets were done for Disney movies. Teddy made a great song, Two Hearts, with Stephanie Mills, years after The Wreck. 

There are only a few singers of Teddy's rank and vintage that are still around with us. In my opinion, the greatest of these is Jeffrey Osborne. Something about Stevie ran off the rails. Al Green doesn't sing any longer.  I know how it used to be, even through the foggy gauze of memory but as much as I've represented the Old School around here at Cobb, I'm often at a loss to say where it has gone. If it remains only in our memories, then I owe it to everyone to bring those forward. So you must take a tour over to Amazon and download Teddy's essentials. 17 bucks for the 'two album' MP3 download. I guarantee it will be worth your while if you remember Teddy, and an eye opening experience if you've never heard the originals.  

 Like all great songs, many of his written by Gamble & Huff, Teddy's sung of simple eternal truths about human nature in love. Unlike today's music all about extraordinarily peculiar particulars Teddy could keep it all straight. We all have been living without Teddy Pendergrass for a long time. He was raw, bold, tender, larger than life. He could say everything that needed to be said without a great deal of elaboration, qualification or deconstruction. 

I don't love you any more.
It's just that simple.
No. No. No. Not like before.
It's a shame. Dirty shame.

Unambiguous. 

I guess in the end, that's how I'll think of TP. He was a singular man. No ifs ands or buts. Simple, direct, amped. Turn off the lights.