From USA TODAY…
‘Soul Train’ laid the rails of a cultural revolution
By Marco R. della Cava and Steve Jones, USA TODAY
Armed with sharp suits and a mesmerizing voice, Don Cornelius set out in 1970 to entertain viewers of Chicago’s WCIU with a song-and-dance TV show called Soul Train. Turns out, America wanted in on the party.
Cornelius, 75, died Wednesday at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said. The music maverick struck financial and cultural gold with Soul Train, whose 35 years on the air made it the longest first-run syndicated show in history, with an effect that crossed generations and races.
“Soul Train gave the black community reason to be proud,” says Kenneth Gamble, half of the fabled songwriting team Gamble & Huff, who wrote the show’s chugging theme song, known as T.S.O.P (The Sound of Philadelphia). “It was so rare at the time to see someone black doing anything like that.”
If Dick Clark’s American Bandstand was Saturday morning’s placid place to play, Soul Train, with its driving music and innovative dancers rooted in the urban scene, was the coolest party you could hope to crash. Its minimalist stage played host to everyone from the Jackson 5 to Elton John.
“That show was the centerpiece of my Saturdays,” says hip-hop artist Terius “The-Dream” Nash, who co-wrote the Beyoncé hit Single Ladies (Put A Ring on It) and performed on the program in 2005. “Don reminded me of my old band teacher. He could look you in the eye and you felt like he knew what you were going to be.”
Soul Train “had a substantial impact and was very much a part of contemporary music history,” says Clive Davis, chief creative officer of Sony Music Worldwide and the record mogul who nurtured the careers of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and Dionne Warwick. “His show reached a sizable and devoted audience, and every major artist of the time did it and did it willingly.”
The music industry mourns
News of Cornelius’ death rippled through the entertainment industry and the blogosphere, where fans famous and anonymous alike were eager to pay tribute to a man whose signature sign-off — “We wish you peace, love and soul!” — became as familiar as family.
“Don Cornelius! It’s so shocking and stunning,” Aretha Franklin said in a statement. “A young, progressive brother set the pace and worldwide standard for young aspiring African-American men.”
Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the basketball legend and chairman of Soul Train Holdings, recalled being glued to the television on Saturdays: “Soul Train taught the world to dance” and gave musicians and dancers “the ultimate platform to showcase their talents when no one else would.”
When Arash Shirazi came to the USA from Iran, he watched Soul Train to learn English and wound up going into show business as a booking agent. He tweeted his condolences, adding that the show “opened the door to R&B dance culture. … It shaped my musical tastes and added a visual element to a song.”
Actor Omar Epps thanked the man for “creating a platform which helped uplift me through my childhood,” and rapper MC Hammer wrote: “It meant more to me to perform on #SoulTrain than to win a Grammy … Loved U So Much Don.”
With his smooth, resonant baritone, Cornelius introduced hundreds of stars to the nation’s multicultural TV audience, including James Brown, Jerry Butler, Marvin Gaye, The O’Jays and Barry White. In the background were a colorful menagerie of partiers who influenced dance and fashion and opened a window onto black culture that had received scant media exposure.
“Back then, there was no targeted television and I just had the sense that television shouldn’t be that way,” Cornelius told USA TODAY in a rare interview in 2010, when the show was celebrated with a VH1 documentary. “The primary mission of the show was to provide TV exposure for people who would not get it otherwise. People who didn’t get invited to The Mike Douglas Show, or (Johnny) Carson. There was no ethnic television, just general-market television, which meant mostly white people.”
Soul Train’s role in pushing black culture into the mainstream cannot be underestimated, says Mark Anthony Neal, professor of black popular culture at Duke University.
“Motown had laid down the sonic groundwork, but Don Cornelius let you visualize it,” he says. “Black power was visible on Soul Train. It’s what led to the love affair between black and white culture, and why eventually you started seeing white musicians like Boz Scaggs on Don’s show. That show filled a gap.”
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