Teddy Pendergrass recorded “Love T.K.O.” for his fourth album, TP. Cecil Womack and Eddie Nobel wrote the song for David Oliver, who recorded it first for his 1980 release, Here’s To You. Cecil and his wife Linda did their version as Womack & Womack for their 1983 Love Wars album. Pendergrass’s cover effectively shut down all the others with his charismatic appearance and gruff tenor. Dexter Wansel arranged his version that hit number two on the R&B chart. By the time TP arrived, Pendergrass was reaching momentum in his career, having had three previous platinum albums. He had started out with Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes just nine years earlier and managed to become the premier solo male R&B singer before Luther Vandross arrived. The year of TP’s release was also the year Pendergrass started to perform his women-only concerts thanks to the marketing vision of his manager Shep Gordon. TP went platinum, as did his fifth album, It’s Time For Love, and the success of those albums meant that Pendergrass had five consecutive platinum albums before any other Black singer.
Seal, Michael McDonald, and Deborah Harry have all paid homage to “Love T.K.O.,” but the song is forever associated with Pendergrass. In 2016, an expanded edition of TP was released. Philadelphia honored the late singer in 2025 with a street naming.
