By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

From his early years as the voice of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes to his continued success as a solo artist, Teddy Pendergrass is a living musical legend. Even after tragedy struck, in the form of a debilitating car accident in the early 1980s, Pendergrass defied the odds and continued to have a record-breaking career as a performer. Pendergrass’ story is being told in a new musical “I Am Who I Am: The Story of Teddy Pendergrass,” opening March 15 at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4520 N Beacon, in Chicago. I had the privilege of speaking with Teddy recently.

Gregg Shapiro: How did you feel when you were first approached by Jackie Taylor of Black Ensemble Theatre about having a play written about you?

Teddy Pendergrass: Honestly, I was surprised, but cautiously surprised. I say that because I’ve been in the business 40 years. Things that sound good not always are good. It came through my agent; it didn’t come directly to me. So, after having gone through my agent, again, I’m cautiously surprised, but I feel better about it because my agent brought it to me.

GS: Did you go from cautious surprise to feeling flattered?

TP: Yeah, I guess so. Actually, I haven’t stopped long enough to really define and analyze. I tend not to do that. I tend to see a project through and then wait to see how it plays out before I allow any emotions to take place.

GS: That’s very wise. I understand that you recently met with Kevin McIlvane and RaShawn Thompson, the two actors who portray you in the play. How did if feel to meet the two people who will be playing you onstage?

TP: Very awkward. Very awkward, because I didn’t want to meet them without being objective, having some preconceived notions of what they should do. As an artist myself, I have never experienced talking to somebody who was going to do me. Automatically, my thought is, “How am I going to get these people to understand what it takes to play me without getting them to do me as though it’s straight off of a concert tape? How do I get them to do the things that people know about when they watch Teddy versus actually doing Teddy?” How you put yourself into that. As a result of meeting the gentlemen and talking to them and getting a sense of their personalities, they more or less looked to me for guidance because I’m proud to say it isn’t easy playing me.

GS: In the play, (playwright) Jackie (Taylor) manages to get across both the serious side of Teddy, when Kevin comes out in the beginning of the play in the wheelchair and speaks of being “more than a man in a wheelchair” and how difficult it is to be a “prisoner in your own body.” But in the midst of all the seriousness, Taylor breaks it up with humor. The Teddy character, if you will, also makes jokes about himself “not standing” with the group (the Blue Notes) anymore and then not being able to stand later in life, and also about “sitting on his ass all day.” Would you say that that is true to who you are as a person—that you have both a very serious side and also a good sense of humor?

TP: What I will say is that I was very much involved in the writing of the script. Let’s start there. Jackie could not have gotten those two contrasts unless she started with me, talked with me, met with me. We talked and I gave her information about me. You can’t get me off the Internet. I’m a very closed and private individual. I am serious, because I don’t think life is a joke. I’m very hard on me and what I do because that’s what pays off for me. I take it very seriously. But I can be a clown, a real clown. I love to have fun. I was on the road for years, and guys on the road, all they do is clown with each other. What do you do? Play cards and pluck each other in the head (laughs) and try to get girls’ phone numbers. You have all the guys out being guys, you have fun, you play ball, you clown, you joke, you play tricks, you play cards, trying to get up and down the highways on a bus. Yes, there is that side that I relish, I love it. Then there’s the other side that is socially conscious, that wants to serve and makes sure that other people achieve their dreams. Because I’ve gone through a lot and I’ve had an opportunity, with the injury, to get to a place that other people would never have imagined—quite frankly, that I never even imagined I would. I wound up being a thriving successful individual despite the injury. All in all, I am a plethora of things. I can be a little complex, but I’m not complicated. There are parts of me and I embellish them and I own them and I play with them because the business is serious. When I’m not around a business table, I’m a nut (laughs)!

GS: The relationship with your mother in the play is very powerful and moving. Two of the new songs in the play, “A Mother’s Love” and “This Far By Faith,” are sung by the mother character, in a way giving her, if you will, a musical voice. Was being able to write these songs another way of expressing your gratitude to your mother?

TP: Yes! I wanted to write new music. I didn’t want this to just be pre-existing songs. I always like to keep things moving and push the envelope. I’m alive and I’m not a dead character that Jackie is writing about the life that I had. We’re talking about the life that I have. And the life that I have is a person who is ever evolving. I wanted the play to have the feeling of newness and freshness—and, yes, to pay homage to my mother, because that’s who raised me. And I know how she felt about me, what her life and her beliefs in life are. In talking to Jackie, we felt that we would come up with songs that gave an 89-year-old woman a voice and let her not only speak as an old woman, which people might expect, but to break out into a song. I thought that would move an audience to no end.

GS: Yes, it’s very effective.

TP: What was difficult for me was that I’ve never written for anybody else. For me, it was a challenge. I write for me. I don’t write for anybody else. And what was good about it was that I was writing for somebody I knew. I knew what my mother thinks and how she feels. So it was finding that creative spirit to write about my mother.

GS: Throughout your career, you have had songs that were associated with the disco scene, such as the solo track “If You Know Like I Know,” and “Bad Luck,” “The Love I Lost” and “Don’t Leave Me This Way” with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Because of having success in the realm, I wondered if you were aware of a following in the gay community throughout your career.

TP: No. My music appeals to everybody. No, I don’t keep a running list of who listens and who doesn’t. That’s not my job.

GS: (Songwriting team) Gamble and Huff are being inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in a few days. Do you have any thoughts on that?


TP: Oh, they more that deserve it. I think that it should have been done a long time ago. They are truly pioneers. There was the Motown family, and next there was Philadelphia International Records, the Gamble and Huff era. They took music into a whole other realm. They opened it up, broadened it. In the Motown era of the ’60s, those artists opened up the airwaves so that black music was played on the white airwaves and gold records were plentiful. Gamble and Huff broadened that even more and artists began to receive platinum records, which I did. I was the first black artist to receive five consecutive platinum records. We opened it up even more, so the ’70s was a place where black music went over the top and those guys are responsible for that.

GS: “I Am Who I Am: The Story of Teddy Pendergrass” is opening in Chicago in March of 2008. What would it mean to you have it open in Philadelphia, your hometown?

TP: That would blow me away. Truly blow me away. I would just go nuts. I would start crying tears of joy.