My Life is No Accident: A memoir by Tenika Watson, as told to Jennifer Daelyn

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PGN: What was your first job out of school? TW: [Laughs.] I got a job at a furniture company dusting furniture. I lived at home for a while and then I started to travel. I lived in Boston for a summer, I lived in Harrisburg for a summer, Virginia, and then I came to Philadelphia. Boston was tough, very racist at that time.

Jenice Armstrong, "Teddy Pendergrass widow seeks to keep his legacy alive", Philadelphia Daily News, January 14, 2015. I went over and spoke to him and said hi. And I said I just wanted to speak to you. He said ‘Ok.’ And I said ‘I’m leaving because I have to get up early tomorrow.’ And he said ‘I’m getting ready to leave too. Would you like a ride home.’ So I said sure. So we proceeded to go to his car and drove away and that’s when the accident happened. The legend of Teddy Pendergrass, who died of cancer in 2010, might be better known had it not been cruelly curtailed at both ends. His early career is obscured by the fact that he rose to fame in a band that did not carry his name: Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Everybody knows their biggest hits: Wake Up Everybody, If You Don’t Know Me By Now, The Love I Lost, and Don’t Leave Me This Way. But to this day, most people assume the guy who sang those tunes was Harold Melvin, but no: it was Pendergrass. Perhaps that also explains why so many of their songs were covered by other artists, most notably Thelma Houston, who refashioned Don’t Leave Me This Way into a disco smash in 1976. That same year, fed up with not getting enough of the credit or the cash, Pendergrass quit the band.There were also rumours that dogged the singer following the death of his first manager and girlfriend Taaz Lang, who was murdered in 1977. His concerts – some of them presented for women only – drew screaming, ecstatic crowds and female fans would fling teddy bears and lingerie onstage.

TP: No. My music appeals to everybody. No, I don’t keep a running list of who listens and who doesn’t. That’s not my job. But Pendergrass suffered a spinal cord injury, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. He was 31. Following the tragic accident there were many who doubted the soul singer’s ability to ever return to making music. SAD news about Teddy Pendergrass, yet interesting to see which mainstream media outlets tell the full story of the Rolls Royce crash that caused his paralysis. The initial Associated Press report did not mention that his passenger was Tenika Watson, a transsexual drag performer born John Watson.This proves to me I can. I have. Others can. It's just a wonderfully glorious opportunity that I've been given, and I'm just taking total advantage of it." Cooking in Heels: A Memoir Cookbook(Ceyenne Doroshow, 2012): More than just a guide to delicious dishes that bring together classic Southern dishes and Caribbean flavors, Ms. Doroshow also shares her stories of creating family and the role that food plays in it. He lost control of his Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit, the car hit a guard rail, crossed into the oncoming lane, and hit two trees.

She was asked by Faggins if there was any part of her life that she would like to change, Watson stated, ‘I wish I had been born genetically a woman instead of having to get surgery. Society won’t accept me as a woman.’ Celebrate #TransJoy by supporting My Life Is No Accident: Tenika Watson's Story, an audio-memoir that documents Tenika's journey of self-love, survival & recovery! Soon after the accident, Watson tried to reach out to Pendergrass, but was unsuccessful. "I went to the hospital where he was and there was a woman there. She said, 'Well, you're not going to see him before his son does,' and she caused this big scene," Watson says. "I just left." Pendergrass published his autobiography, Truly Blessed, with Patricia Romanowski in 1998. [21] [ failed verification] [ full citation needed]

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Staff (5 August 2021). "James Brown 'cape man' to be inducted into R&B Hall of Fame". www.wrdw.com . Retrieved August 16, 2021. In March 1982, R&B superstar Teddy Pendergrass lost control of his car on Philadelphia's Lincoln Drive. While he survived, the accident rendered him handicapped and his career as a recording artist vanished. Tenika Watson was the passenger in the car crash. She not only survived the crash, but decades of transphobic rumors - some started by Teddy's own manager, Shep Gordon - blaming her for the accident.

Then 31 year old Tenika Watson's injuries were more emotional than physical. Her life after the accident suffered as a result of the publicity surrounding the crash and after she was outed as a transwoman. TEDDY Pendergras has died. But what of Tenika Watson, a transsexual drag performer born John Watson. Anorak’s Man in LA writes: Sometimes, being a woman of color in society, you can feel like your voice isn't heard. You can feel like your opinions or your views don't matter," she says. "We do have an obligation to make sure that voice is heard."He knew his career would never be the same but he continued to record, even reaching number 2 on the R&B charts with Joy, years after the accident. He lived more than 20 years after the accident when doctors predicted he would only live for 7. Speaking to Life and Style about how she got the inspiration to make If You Don’t Know Me, she says: “I’ve always been a soul girl. When I was at school in break time we’d be in the hall doing little formation dances to soul records. I remember seeing this documentary about Shep Gordon who was Teddy’s manager. Across a series of 14 chapter episodes, Tenika's voice has the power to heal and spread love to anyone - especially trans people - whose lives have been consistently questioned, undervalued, and physically and sexually harmed just for being their true selves.