Review of Teddy Pendergrass: From Teddy, With Love

Introduction

Twenty years ago just as Teddy Pendergrass was enjoying a solo career following his departure from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes he was involved in a near fatal car accident. Paralysed from the waist down it took him 19 years to get back on stage. Fearful of how an audience would react to a man in a wheelchair singing, what are essentially dance songs, he was pleasantly surprised by their reaction. The audience obviously love him and are pleased to see him singing on stage again. He is still confined to a wheelchair but his voice is very strong. His most well known songs featured in this concert are "If you don`t know me by now", and "The love I lost". These songs are from his period as the Blue Notes` lead singer .The group had the most success while Teddy was the featured lead. Having demanded equal bidding with Melvin he left and took his velvet voice with him.

The man who used to perform concerts for "ladies only" was apparently concerned that no one would come to see him when he started singing live again. Judging by this concert it does not seem to be a problem.

Video

This is purely a live concert filmed for video and dvd. It has been digitally mastered and the colours and picture are sharp. It is in Widescreen format. All this effort but visually it is pretty uninteresting I`m afraid

Audio

Great attention has been paid to the sound reproduction and there are three choices for you depending on what your preference is. DTS certainly seems to produce a depth and richness lacking slightly in the 5.1. There is also PCM.

Features

This is really for Teddy`s fan base:
Featurette
Interview about his return to live music
Chapter selection-for songs
Text pages about The Teddy Pendergrass Alliance- a charity set up to help those with spinal injury.
Not a whole lot but with this kind of disc I`m at a loss to know what you can put on as extras.

Conclusion

It still sounds good and if you happen to like his music it`s a good enough disc. The addition of DTS definitely makes a difference and would make me seek out other music DVDs with this. However with no real interest in the visuals at £20 it`s a bit steep when you can probably pick up his greatest hits on CD for a whole lot less.