Teddy – Teddy Pendergrass
It’s strange the information you bury. Writing this I was surprised at how much Teddy Pendergrass adjacent knowledge I have without actually knowing anything about him. I’ve had a benign awareness of the man due to hip hop name drops. One of Wu-Tang’s fringe members goes by the alias ‘Cappa Pendergrass’ and Freddie Gibbs released a mock version of ‘Teddy’ called ‘Freddie’. I also happen to know he goal poached Marvin Gaye’s second wife. And yet I have no voice or face to associate the name with. I discovered Teddy Pendergrass by chance, browsing Apple Music on a groggy morning in York. I’m a magpie for essential albums. Something inside me becomes obsessive and I must have the albums in my library immediately, even if I don’t listen to them. Teddy had four. But I picked ‘Teddy’. He just has this look of assurance bordering on arrogance in his eye on the album cover. I interpreted that as Teddy’s way of throwing down the gauntlet. His way of saying ‘I dare you not to enjoy this’.
The first half of ‘Teddy’ is the typical R&B, soppy lyric, slow groove affair. ‘Turn Off the Lights’ is the crudest track, but even this is only borderline horny. Glossy would scold me for listening to ‘old people sex music’, but I think enjoyment entirely depends on where your thresholds lay. Those with a strong stomach will be tucked up in a bearskin rug by the fire. Those of a weaker constitution may feel trapped in a bearskin onesie with your feet in the fire like the end of Midsommar. I find the tameness gives ‘Teddy’ more class than age. At the very least it has aged with grace. I own family polaroids from the 70s and I can see my grandparents slow dancing in an empty hall through technicolour lens flares. My granddad is young but dressed as I knew him, a red scarf over a black suit. I guess it’s tough to shrug off the vividness of recent memories. There is also inherent classiness in the orchestra, both grandiose and intimate. Hear luxury penthouse views on New Years Eve, a romantic, nighttime river cruise and opulent escapes to tropical destinations. ‘Come Go with Me’ even sounds like a Bond theme at certain turns. To best describe this, you’ll have to bear with me. I saw Arctic Monkeys in 2023. On stage there was a ‘nostalgia portal’, a large circular screen that displayed the band as they performed using this 70s TV soap effect. But coupled with the suits and the slow panning cameras, it depicted a lavish, cozy dream of a bygone era. ‘Teddy’ exists on the other side of the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘nostalgia portal’.
The second half of ‘Teddy’ forgoes the intimacy for burning up the disco. I like to think this half inspired the album cover. It is the unexpected rendezvous. It’s running at Teddy’s right hand side into the possibilities of the night. ‘If You Know Like I Know’ and cryptically titled ‘Do Me’ are what I like to refer to as ‘pelvic disco’. A genre made for people who proudly display chest hair. It’s so palpable you could choke on it. ‘Set Me Free’ is music to strut to. It’s music that would consistently inspires an Irish exit from me. ‘Life Is a Circle’ could have been on Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’, but I don’t begrudge Teddy because the song gives me canned heat. It’s a shallow end to the album but what’s wrong with dancing around your kitchen with a spatula microphone.
When it comes to R&B vocals, I refer to the wisdom of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard. And Teddy’s voice is most certainly raw. Sometimes this album sounds like eight stages of blue balls. He becomes increasingly more manic with each song and the more frustrated and passionate Teddy gets, the more entertaining the vocal performance. Teddy Pendergrass has a swiss army voice. He channels growls that Otis Reading would be proud of on ‘Turn Off the Lights’. Just thinking about it makes me want a Strepsil. He produces this wounded baritone on ‘I’ll Never See Heaven Again’ akin to Isaac Hayes and on ‘If You Know Like I Know’ he combines Sly’s howls and outbursts with George Clinton’s sloppiness. But ‘Set Me Free’ is my favourite vocal performance. Teddy’s voice smoulders like embers. You don’t know whether he’ll snuff himself with the next breath or burst into flames.
Not everything I listen to will inspire me to write, at least not in equal share. ‘Teddy’ sounds expensive but it’s fairly surface level. It’s fun, it has great grooves and vocal performances, but I have heard it done just as well before. That being said, I was listening to ‘Teddy’ as I walked through London Bridge coming back from the pub the other day and I swear I was the only person walking the way I was going. It was as if I was dialled into a completely different frequency, like I was stood the other side of the nostalgia portal looking out. Maybe the Estrella unlocked a supressed part of me that absorbs grooves. I just stared up at the blackening sky from the platform as the world around me blurred. Insignificant flashes passed my peripherals. The sky knitted its brow, and I didn’t care. I was lost in the shifting contrast between the clouds and the moonlit backdrop. Perhaps Teddy Pendegrass led me through the Doors of Perception. Or maybe I was just a silly pissed fool nodding like Churchill the Dog whilst onlookers smirked and shook their heads. Either way, Teddy won.
