He got his start as a drummer and in 1969 hooked up with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
He moved to the front as a vocalist soon after, and by 1971, the group had signed with legendary producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at Philadelphia International Records.
The group scored such hits as "The Love I Lost," "Yesterday I Had the Blues" and "Wake Up, Everybody."
Pendergrass broke out on his own in 1976, and became the first black male singer in history to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums, according to his Web site.
After playing to sold-out shows around the globe, tragedy struck in 1982 when he lost control of his Rolls-Royce and crashed on Wissahickon Drive, resulting in severe spinal cord damage and paralyzing him from the waist down.
"They don't fill you with hope after something like this," Pendergrass told the Daily News in 2007.
"They tell you that your life is going to be shorter, but they don't know by how much."
He spent six months in a hospital after the accident but returned to recording the next year with the album "Love Language."
He released in 1985 "Working It Back," which was followed by "Joy" (1988), "Truly Blessed" (1990) "A Little More Magic" (1993) and "You and I" (1997).
Gamble and Huff, in a joint statement, said that Pendergrass was "one of the greatest artists that the music industry has ever known, and there hasn't been another one since.
"We've lost our voice and we've lost our best friend, but we're thankful for what we had," the statement read. "It was beautiful. He was one of the best."
Earlier, Huff reminisced during an interview aired on WDAS-FM about Pendergrass' first solo performance, which was at a club in California.
