Teddy Pendergrass, perhaps best known as lead singer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (“If You Don’t Know Me By Now”), has gone west. He had been paralyzed from the chest down after a car crash in 1982, at the age of 31, but continued to make music. He died of complications from colon cancer. But oh, what a voice.
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Thanks for posting this. Friday night there was a rebroadcast of a “Fresh Air” interview with Pendergrass. (Back in the day I didn’t know that Teddy was the lead voice of the Blue Notes and not Harold Melvin.) Pendergrass tells how people contantly called him “Harold” and then later – after his accident and under the guidance of his pyschologist – staged a mock funeral in order to come to terms with his losses and his new life.