Teddy Pendergrass injured his spinal cord in 1982 and spent six months in hospital. Though he resumed recording the following year, with the album Love Language, a brief wheelchair-bound return to the stage for the worldwide Live Aid concert in 1985 revealed that his raw baritone voice had lost much of its power. It was 19 years before he relaunched his stage career: in 2001 he appeared live at two sell-out shows in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
His rise to fame began during the early 1970s, when he ushered in a new era in rhythm and blues with his fiery yet sensual brand of soul and his ladies' man image, which was burnished by strikingly handsome looks.
He first won popularity as the lead singer with Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. In 1971 the group signed a record deal with the producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Their first single, I Miss You, was released in 1972, and was followed later that year by If You Don't Know Me By Now, which was nominated for a Grammy.
By the mid-1970s the group were in the vanguard – along with other bands such as the O'Jays and the Three Degrees – of the so-called Philadelphia Sound, which had supplanted Motown as the pre-eminent force in soul music. The Blue Notes' live shows, in which they performed elaborate dance routines in evening dress tails, mirrored the sophisticated production values of their music.
The group was then working under the name Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, featuring Theodore Pendergrass; but when in 1976 Pendergrass challenged Melvin for top billing and failed, he left to pursue a solo career. It was this that brought him his greatest fame. With songs such as Love TKO, Close the Door and I Don't Love You Anymore, he came to define a new era of black male singers whose aggressive vocals suggested virility, not vulnerability. His lyrics were never coarse, unlike those of some male R&B stars, but they had a sensual nature that, without being explicit, bordered on eroticism.
Like Tom Jones and the other great "love man" of 1970s soul, Barry White, Pendergrass made women fans swoon, and his concerts testified to their adulation, with the usual stories of underwear being hurled on stage.
Although he continued to release albums in the years after his accident, Pendergrass was no longer seen as a sex symbol. Instead he cut a more sympathetic, tragic figure, though he still commanded a strong following among his core female fans.
He subsequently founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, an organisation designed to encourage and help people with spinal cord injuries achieve their maximum potential and independence.
Theodore DeReese Pendergrass was born in Philadelphia on March 26 1950. As a boy, he often passed an opulent house on his way to the Thomas Edison high school, promising himself that he would own it himself one day. He was to buy the property after recording five platinum albums in succession, the first black artist to achieve this feat.
Originally hired by Harold Melvin as a drummer for the Cadillacs, the group that later became the Blue Notes, Pendergrass was soon promoted to lead singer. He should have been able to purchase his 34-room mansion on the strength of this group's success, but Melvin allegedly swindled the other members of the line-up, and during his tenure Pendergrass received only one royalty cheque.
When the band toured, Melvin stayed in lavish four-star hotel suites, while the remaining Blue Notes were consigned to fleapit motels. To make matters worse, group members apparently had to make an appointment when they wanted to speak to Melvin.
Pendergrass's successful solo career belatedly brought him the riches that his talent had long promised. He bought the rights to the Otis Redding story and invested in joint ventures with the singer Stephanie Mills, whom he met when they recorded a successful duet together, Two Hearts.
Pendergrass was also a close friend to Latoya Jackson, and he had several children with different women back home in Philadelphia. During this time, Pendergrass and his fellow soul singer Marvin Gaye had a falling-out because Pendergrass was dating Gaye's ex-wife, Janis.
Pendergrass later came up with the concept of women-only concerts, which quickly sold out across the United States. But his career came to an abrupt halt in March 1982 when, aged 31, he drove home with a transvestite in his Rolls-Royce after a basketball game. The trip ended with Pendergrass crashing the car into a tree. His passenger escaped with cuts and bruises, but Pendergrass was paralysed from the chest down.
The accident was surrounded by salacious gossip, with rumours of sexual shenanigans in the vehicle at the time of the accident and suggestions that the former wife of a sports superstar was also a passenger but was whisked from the scene to avoid scandal.
Shortly after the accident, Pendergrass sold his estate and moved into a smaller home. He was married to one of his former dancers for several years before they divorced. The singer published his autobiography, Truly Blessed, in 1992 and underwent colon cancer surgery eight months ago.
Teddy Pendergrass is survived by his son, Teddy Pendergrass II, and two daughters.
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