Teddy Pendergrass 'still proclaimed he was a lover'

Here's one for Teddy Pendergrass, who died Wednesday at 59.

Pendergrass had one of those raw, powerful voices that ... well, many a young man's late-night agenda was set to Pendergrass' voice back in the late 1970s.

A 1982 car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

From the Associated Press:

... but instead of becoming bitter or depressed, Pendergrass created a new identity — that as a role model, friend and longtime colllaborator Kenny Gamble said ... "He never showed me that he was angry at all about his accident," Gamble said in a telephone interviewwith The Associated Press. "In fact, he was very courageous." Pendergrass left a remarkable imprint on the music world as he ushered in a new era in R&B with his fiery, sensual and forceful brand of soul and his ladies' man image, burnished by his strikingly handsome looks ...

The accident left him in a wheelchair, and took something off his voice, and off his image.

"He used to say something in his act in the wheelchair, 'Don't let the wheelchair fool you,' because he still proclaimed he was a lover," Gamble said ... but his career was never the same. Gamble said it was difficult for Pendergrass to project vocally like he once did: "The breathing aspect of it, he wasn't really able to deal with it."

He had colon cancer surgery eight months ago, and apparently the recovery was difficult. He had been hospitalized for several months.

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