![]() ![]() That same year, fed up with not getting enough of the credit or the cash, Pendergrass quit the band.Īs a solo artist, Pendergrass was often called the “black Elvis”. Perhaps that also explains why so many of their songs were covered by other artists, most notably Thelma Houston, who refashioned Don’t Leave Me This Way into a disco smash in 1976. But to this day, most people assume the guy who sang those tunes was Harold Melvin, but no: it was Pendergrass. Everybody knows their biggest hits: Wake Up Everybody, If You Don’t Know Me By Now, The Love I Lost, and Don’t Leave Me This Way. His early career is obscured by the fact that he rose to fame in a band that did not carry his name: Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. The legend of Teddy Pendergrass, who died of cancer in 2010, might be better known had it not been cruelly curtailed at both ends. “He wasn’t built like Arnold Schwarzenegger or nothing, he came out in that wife-beater T-shirt and they went crazy. “I think the tone of his voice hit a certain centre in them, or something,” suggests James Carter, who played drums in his band for seven years, and therefore had a ringside seat on the Pendergrass effect. Gordon’s big idea was to put on women-only concerts – “Spend the night with Teddy” – where women would be given chocolate teddy-bear lollies to suck as they swooned to slow jams such as Turn Off the Lights (sample lyrics: “Turn off the lights and light a candle / Tonight I’m in a romantic mood / Let’s take a shower together / I’ll wash your body and you’ll wash mine / Rub me down with some hot oils, baby, yeah / And I’ll do the same thing to you”). They disguised themselves as maids to get into his hotel room. They rushed the stage and threw their underwear at him when he performed. By all accounts, women found him irresistible, and Pendergrass felt obliged to love as many of them back as he possibly could. ![]() Think Barry White in the body of Idris Elba. He was a tall, handsome, stylish man, given to performing in a white vest and a layer of sweat. “And all the guys loved Teddy because he’d get the women in the mood for them. “One guy said to me: ‘Teddy Pendergrass was an early form of Viagra,’” says Olivia Lichtenstein, the documentary’s director. His music, especially at the peak of his solo career, was very much in the groove of smooth, seductive soul, powered by a husky, passionate-yet-effortless baritone. Gordon didn’t have to do a lot of market research to come that conclusion: Teddy Pendergrass oozed sex – in his music, in his stage act, in his lifestyle. (To lend an easy-to-read experience for our readers, the original interview has been split into multiple stories.“With Teddy, we realised it was all about sex,” says his manager Shep Gordon at one point in new doc Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me. It is a bitter end for the Romeo-Juliet pair and for Ernie who starts accepting the fact that Stella would never be his. Teddy strikes it big and performs live, but it proves to be his last gig as one of Ernie's colleagues shoot Teddy dead point-blank. He loves Stella and despite Chin Gigante's (Vincent D'Onforio) warning to leave Teddy alone, he goes to meet the couple. And Ernie is a man with serious doubts about his career as a Mafia man. The episode also ties up the Ernie (Rafi Gavron)-Stella-Teddy Greene love triangle. The character may have had a tragic ending, but he plays a pivotal role throughout the series with his love story being an integral plot point throughout the season. And so there's a little Sam Cooke tossed in there, but Ted, he's fictional".Īs pity as it is, Teddy is shot is the final episode by one of Chin's men. We were starting to walk that line between being entertainers and being civil rights advocates. "Teddy Greene is, is a composite character who sort of incorporates Frankie Lyons, a popular young musician of the time. However, fans had one question: "Who is Teddy Greene's character based on?" Answering the question was the series creator, Chris Brancato in an exclusive with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW). Detested for being black, Teddy was targeted by Chin throughout the series. Teddy played an aspiring musician in the show and was a great singer. One storyline was the love story between Stella Gigante (Lucy Fry), the daughter of Vincent Chin Gigante (Vincent D' Onofrio), and Teddy Greene (Kelvin Harrison Jr). While 'Godfather of Harlem' had a major chunk of the spotlight on its lead character, Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker), the show had brilliant subplots around the supporting characters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |