He’s Digging Deep Into His Soul

When Teddy Pendergrass hit an Atlantic City, N.J., stage in May for his first full concert in 19 years, the feeling for him was almost indescribable.

“I really can’t explain it other than to say it was the most rewarding feeling I could have gotten,” he says in a phone interview from Philadelphia.

Of course, he added, “every stage of my career has been rewarding, absolutely the most awesome thing I’d ever experienced. So it was just another episode in my life.

“In the very beginning, when I first went on stage at 18, I’m thinking, ‘God, this is so cool,”’ he says. “Then another stage it’s something else. The first time I played Carnegie Hall in 1977, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so great.”’

He’s had a lot of career highlights. Growing up in Philadelphia, he joined Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, with whom he recorded a number of their Gamble & Huff hits, including “The Love I Lost,” “Wake Up Everybody” and “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.”

Striking out on his own in 1976, he became one of the best-known soul men of the era with such simmering hits as “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” “You Can’t Hide From Yourself,” “Love TKO” and “Turn Off the Lights.”

The first black male singer to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums, he was also a top concert attraction worldwide.

That almost came to an end on March 18, 1982, when the brakes failed on his Rolls-Royce and the car hit a tree. Pendergrass spent eight days in a coma, waking up on his 32nd birthday.

Paralyzed from the chest down with a spinal cord injury, he spent six months in the hospital in rehabilitation before leaving in a wheelchair.

Although he continued to record, with albums including “Love Language,” “Working It Back” and “Joy,” he made just one concert appearance. But it was a memorable one, broadcast worldwide--when he joined Ashford & Simpson as a surprise guest in an emotional performance at Live Aid in 1985.

“I’ve had a lot of big events in my life,” Pendergrass, 51, says. “Each point is significant to me.”

For now, Pendergrass’ appearances come one by one. But a full-blown tour is not out of the question for the performer.

“I plan to work as often as the opportunities present themselves,” Pendergrass says. “The good thing about it is I don’t have to do it. It’s not about doing it for the money. It’s about doing it for selfish reasons: It’s all about me feeling good about what I do and doing it because I felt the need to feel complete and do it. And to make statements to the world about people with disabilities.”

He’s been doing that through his organization, the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, which helps people with spinal cord injuries.

“For me, it came as a result of knowing that people with spinal cord injuries are extremely capable,” he says. “To help change the idea that people in wheelchairs are at the end of their lives, they can no longer be productive, they can’t be helpful and they can’t do their part in society.”

Sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t understand, he says. “And the more you see people integrated into society, the more people you see at the workplace, at the desk next to you, doing what you do, the less fear and the less apprehensions they have interacting with people who are actually no different than you. They just get around in wheels. That’s about it.”

His own preparation for a return to his workplace has taken a lot of time, starting with assembling a band.

“I was fortunate enough to get people who I had worked with in the past. One guy retired and is living on Maui,” he says. “It’s a big undertaking to get people to come from different parts of the country together for one situation, especially understanding that I can’t get up and go get in a car or a plane and fly to see people.

“Everybody’s got to come to me. So it was a big effort, but it was an effort I feel very comfortable about, because everybody is so good.”

Less of a problem was deciding which of his more than a dozen hits to perform.

“That’s a good thing,” he says. “It could be the other way. So it was a good problem.”