After a suffering year long battle with colon cancer, R&B legend Teddy Pendergrass passed away yesterday at 59 years old.

Friends and family members told the Associated Press that the five time grammy nominated singer struggled to recover since his initial diagnosis.  He died at Bryn Mawr Hospital outside his native Philadelphia.

Pendergrass’ inherent ability to fight through his circumstances somewhat defined his career, in that he wouldn’t let anything prevent him from international stardom.

In 1982, with a brilliant career ahead of him, he was involved in a near fatal car accident.

The former lead singer of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes was hospitalized for six months and paralyzed from the waist down.

That, however, did not stop him from topping the charts for years. He had ten platinum albums in a row and scored memorable ditties such as “Joy,” “Love TKO,” “It Should Have Been You” and a plethora of others.