Teddy was a soul man

Thirty years ago, when I was a world-class obituary writer for the Atlanta Constitution, there was a beautiful female reporter whose racial heritage some of us in the newsroom spent way too many hours trying to guess.

Was she white? Was she a sista?

We were too polite to ask, and the answer would've remained a mystery had not I - unintentionally - cracked the code.

"Yo, Slim," I asked her one day when she passed by the obit desk, "You going to the 'Teddy' concert tonight?"

She looked at me blankly before answering two questions at once: "Teddy who?"

She definitely wasn't a sista, since in those days every black woman over the age of consent knew there was only one Teddy, soul singer Teddy Pendergrass.

Even if you are familiar with Pendergrass and his steamy, PG-rated lyrics that had a generation of lovers turning down lights and closing doors, you might've missed news of his death at age 59 from colon cancer.

If you weren't familiar with him, let me tell you: Pendergrass was no purveyor of the bland, homogenized, soulless soul music of singers like Luther Vandross or Lionel Richie. This dude's baritone was brusque, even offensive to some women - or at least they publicly claimed it was, like when he barked "Come here, woman" in his 1976 hit "Close the Door."

He was no Luther

Pendergrass' singing was informed by, and owed much to, virile soul men like Otis Redding and Wicked Pickett. I expect to be assailed by Lutherphiles who loved every remade, bland utterance that proceeded from his lips, but can even they imagine Luther growling "turn 'em off" the way Teddy does in "Turn Off the Lights"? He might've tried it, but the woman would've fallen over laughing.

Most of these modern so-called soul men are lacking in either virility, ability or soul, I haven't yet figured out which. When Maxwell performed at the Durham Performing Arts Center last year, the thousands of women at the show seemed to enjoy it immensely, although with nothing near the fervor of Teddy's audiences at his peak.

My theory is that most of the women screaming for Maxwell were more impressed by his pretty-boy looks than by his wan, often indecipherable delivery and nonexistent showmanship. That's probably why the dude sitting next to me slept through the show.

I never saw a man sleeping through a Teddy concert. If anything, fellas were taking notes - if they were permitted in at all.

The Teddy show I covered for the newspaper - the editor let me write more than obits sometimes - was open to all, but Teddy was famous for women-only concerts. There'd be 15,000 screaming ladies inside enjoying the show and at least that many dudes outside waiting for it to end, hoping to reap some benefit from the frenzy into which their women had been whipped by Teddy.

He spoke for men

Other than talent and showmanship, there is another difference between Teddy and the pretty-boy poseurs of today: As much as the ladies loved Teddy, his music was also for us men. His oeuvre could carry an inexpressive brother from the introduction to a woman right on through the breakup. Think about it. You start with the introduction - "Come Go With Me (Over to My Place)," followed by the aforementioned and obligatory "Close the Door" and "Turn Out the Lights."

With Teddy's songs, an inarticulate man could go through the first three years of a relationship without having to speak at all.

That's when things are going good between Sweet Thang and you. It's when trouble looms in paradise, though, that Teddy was at his best for us. Despite his sophisticated, ladies-man veneer, Pendergrass made some of the pillow-soakingest, brown-liquor-drinkingest music imaginable. When you're heartbroken, only brown liquor and Teddy singing lead on "I Miss You" with Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes will do, right, guys?

Remember Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief for someone who is dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance?

There are at least that many to the death of a love affair, and Teddy had a song to shepherd us through each one. What is more depressing than Teddy begging on "I Miss You?" Is there a better bargaining song than Teddy pleading "Can't We Try?"

Want to know when you've finally accepted that it's over, guys? When you pull out your album - it has to be an album: CDs don't convey the same emotion - and can listen to Teddy sing "It Don't Hurt Now."