Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Don’t Leave Me This Way (Dim’s Re-Edit)
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Album: After The Playboy Mansion (Compilation, 2002)

Teddy Pendergrass
You Can’t Hide From Yourself
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Album: Teddy Pendergrass (1977)

This is part one of a two-part tribute to Teddy Pendergrass. part two

This week’s passing of soul legend Teddy Pendergrass hurts a little bit. Few can claim as much authority on the mic as Teddy. During his prime, even his ballads were turned up to 11.

Of course, I dove into the collection on a hunt for all things Teddy. Embarrassed to say, I only had a greatest hits collection and Life Is a Song Worth Singing, Teddy’s second LP. After listening to Life Is a Song Worth Singing from end to end, I decided that it is worthy of LP Classics designation; a full post is forthcoming.

I did have a few Teddy tracks on some compilations, plus Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ Wake Up Everybody, their landmark 1975 LP with Teddy on lead vocals. That record included a bunch of great tracks, chief among them the rousing 5-star classic "Don’t Leave Me This Way." Even though the LP version is a scorcher, I decided to digitize a 2002 “re-edit” from Dimitri From Paris that modestly improves upon the track’s mixability.

The other track I selected is “You Can’t Hide From Yourself,” from Teddy’s 1977 eponymous solo debut LP. As the title might indicate, this became an anthem in gay discos. Philly Soul architects Gamble & Huff threw it down yet again, combining a thomping beat, blaring Philly horns, and a positive message with one of Teddy’s most urgent vocals.

Some biographical notes upon Teddy’s passing:

• Read his NY Times obituary or his Wikipedia page.
• Everything changed for Teddy after a 1982 car accident made him a paraplegic. Though he rarely performed live after the accident, he did keep making commercially successful records. But he mostly dedicated his post-accident life towards advocating for the rights of those with spinal cord injuries.
• Teddy got his start as a replacement drummer for Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Harold quickly figured out that Teddy could also sing, and reassigned him to lead singer. Get a taste of Teddy’s percussion skills in the clip below (he picks up the drumsticks starting at 3:40):

• The ladies loved them some Teddy, and he occasionally put on shows where only women were allowed in the audience as he passed around lollipops shaped like himself (R. Kelly, take note). In researching Teddy’s life, I was surprised to learn there may have been another side to his image as the consummate ladies’ man. Because I want gBlog to value musical drama over the real-life variety, I won’t go into the details here, but a quick search about the nature of Teddy’s car accident will clue you in.

Smoke And Love
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The Seed (Rock N’ Roll)
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Blackman vs. Batman
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Album: The Headphone Masterpiece (Promo, 2002)

Back in 2002, I had a standing DJ gig at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. It was probably the highlight of my short, professional DJ career. The hotel was hipster central, I could play whatever I wanted, and I met tons of beautiful people. I even got a hug from Ed Lover.

Every once in a while, some hustling musician would try to slip me a CD in the hopes I would play one of their songs. I am kind of a purist about vinyl, so even though the Hudson provided CD players along with turntables, I politely gave him or her a thanks but no thanks.

One memorable evening, some dude graciously gave me the LP you see above. He was cool and laid-back, suggesting I should listen to it at home, preferably with headphones. The record looked totally ghetto, with a partially hand-written label. The cover was a standard white cover sleeve with an ugly pink/aqua textured spoke pattern. (Click on the image above to see it in gruesome detail.)

But I liked the dude’s low-key style, and gave The Headphone Masterpiece a listen. What I think was intended as the single was eh, but there were a couple of tracks on the B-side that had woozy, appealing charisma and catchy melodies. The recording quality was lousy, but I think that was by design. Cody Chesnutt (though I’m amused by the spelling, I’m not buying into the alt punctuation… ChesnuTT?) wasn’t quite fully formed, but he was original.

“Smoke And Love” has lyrics that are collegiate and silly, but he sings it with such sincerity that it’s hard to resist.

“The Seed (Rock N’ Roll)” might be familiar to fans of The Roots. They threw Cody a serious bone, beefing up the backing track, adding a Black Thought rap, and rebooting it as “The Seed 2.0” It was a minor hit for them and used pretty effectively in a Six Feet Under episode.

I also threw in “Blackman vs. Batman.” I have no idea why he chose that title for this brief instrumental.

Though the promo was only 7 songs, the official release of The Headphone Masterpiece was a massive, 36-track double album. It made a bit of a splash but Cody hasn’t released another album, to my knowledge. His MySpace page has some new tracks but I find the accompanying text more entertaining than the music.

I wish him much success, though. I wonder if it was Cody himself who handed me this weird little record.