July 18, 2026 • 46 mins
In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh dive into the funky, cool world of the classic TV show, Sooooooooul Train.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's Chuck here.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's April twenty first, twenty twenty on our COVID timeline
here for the Saturday Trip down Memory Lane. This is
a really fun episode, so I'm very excited to recommend
this app from April twenty first, the Soul Train episode
where we took a fun look back at the great,
great TV show that was So.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Train.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and
there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and this is
stuff you should know. Not bad, let's hear yours. I
know you can do it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
The Soul Train it's so much higher than that.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
That was good, though, but you dropped it down into
your range and it's still was. You made it to
your own I think, is what I'm trying to say,
and I.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Like it, which is old white guy version.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
So you're not old, You're just middle aged.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Okay, sure, well let me ask you this, Chuck. Were
you aware of Soul Train while it was on?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, okay, then your Super Bowl?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I love Soul Train.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Sure, so I was a solid gold man myself. But
I can get on some Soul Train for sure, especially
like vintage stuff these days.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I mean I've watched Solid Gold to be sure,
an American Bandstand, But I was just a a rabid
consumer of popular culture and television and music growing up,
so before MTV came along and completely changed my life,
because that's all I watched was shows like Soul Train
(01:52):
were where I could because you know, often I couldn't
stay up to watch late night tea talk shows where
you see performances like this is where I got to
see live music before I could start go seeing live music.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Right, Oh, yeah, that was and that was a huge
draw of it for sure. Like the idea of just
being able to tune in on Saturday at eleven am,
depending on where you were and seeing like a somebody
like Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder perform like that was
that was a big deal, especially like you're saying, if
you were too young and fell asleep too early to
go to a proper show, that's right, but even more
(02:26):
than that, and like that was a huge, huge mark
that Soul Train left was just presenting that. But that
had been done before there was American band Stand. There
are all sorts of like kind of dance party TV shows.
So it didn't exactly pioneer in that sense, but what
it did pioneer in is that the people that was
presenting African Americans teenagers who were hip and their own
(02:51):
people and part of black culture, and presenting it in
a way that like was an apologetic that wasn't critical,
that did didn't portray it in some sort of negative
light or in a way that you know, was trying
to get white people to understand it. Just presenting it
as it was and celebrating it. That's where SoulTrain like
(03:12):
really broke through. And it's very very difficult to overstate
how revolutionary and groundbreaking SoulTrain was, especially for how simple
this show format was.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Basically, Yeah, I mean, like you said, bandstand had been
around since nineteen fifty two, and this, you know, kind
of was known as the Black American Bandstand, and it
followed that format. It was, you know, people, a live
music performance, a host interviewing and talking to these people
these musicians afterward briefly, and then beyond that just awesome
(03:50):
music spinning on the turntable and amazing dancing, amazing outfits,
amazing hair styles, and just to celebrate of black culture.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And the point is made in this in this article
that they put together for us, but.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It was it was definitely by.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Black people and four black people, but it was an
introduction to black culture to white kids like me, little
eight year old Chuck in Stone Mountain, Georgia sitting around
watching the Soul Train dance line.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah, I can imagine. It was mind blowing, Chuck, Like
I think it wasn't just you know, it wasn't like
you were necessarily sheltered where you were growing up. Whether
you were or not, it kind of doesn't matter. It
was that there there was no place for you to
be exposed to this prior to Soul Train, that if
you saw a black guy on TV, it was say
(04:46):
on the news and he was being arrested for something,
or they you know, he was involved in a protest
and the protest was kind of presented in a particularly negative,
agitated light, or he was a side on TV or
a servant or in some kind of goofy comedy or
something like that. Like in Soul Train and do that.
(05:08):
There was no there was no subscribing to all like
the preconceived notions that there have been before it was
just its own thing. It was like, hey, by the
way we've been you know, we have our own culture
over here. You guys have ignored all this time. We're
gonna put it on TV and show it often. If
you like it, awesome, if you don't get lost.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, And Dave I thought it was kind of astute
that he said it was kind of like a lifestyle
brand before that was such a thing because these people
were influencers. What you saw on Soul Train, you wanted
to dance like that, You wanted to wear those clothes.
If someone debuted a sweet move that you saw on
(05:48):
Saturday morning, you would practice that move in your living
room and then debut it at your club that night.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
And there were like some pretty sweet moves that were
debuted on Soul Trained. The Sweetest we did an entire
episode on the Moonwalk, if you'll remember correctly, and that
was originally called the backslide that was created on Soul Train.
The robot, the rerun ding it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Man, there's so much sweet roboting going on.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, yeah, and that's where it came from. Apparently no
one did the robot, and like these were like basically
club kids who now had a place to do their
club stuff on TV and then go out to the
clubs later that night and do some more and like
come up with more stuff, and they'd come bring it
to SoulTrain again. And then kids would watch that. Kids,
(06:35):
college kids, adults would watch this and be like, this
is the coolest thing that's on TV right now, and
I want to do those dance moves too.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Let's read a couple of these quotes that kind of
encapsulate how important of a show this was. One is
from philosopher, activists and Harvard professor Cornell West. He said,
I never missed it Saturday morning as a graduate at
a student at Princeton. I would see it wherever I
was available to the world. One of the great traditions
in American history, which is a history of soul music.
(07:05):
Soul music at its best, taught America, especially young Americans,
about color, how to be free, and how to love
in a deeper and better way. And this from common
the actor and rapper. Watching my babysitter get the opportunity
to go on Soul Train was like a dream come
true for her because Soul Train was the biggest thing
then for the black community. It gave ordinary everyday people
(07:28):
an opportunity to express themselves. It showed us that we
too have a place on TV.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, and I can't imagine what commons babysitter, How excited
she must have been to get to be on Soul Train.
Oh yeah, like that must have been the biggest thing possible.
Like they said it was the hippus trip on television,
and like that was not much of an exaggeration, especially
at the time, especially when you compared it to like
American Bandstand at the time, which when Soul Train came along,
(07:56):
you said, bansand had been on since nineteen fifty two,
almost two decades by this time. SoulTrain comes along. And
there was a TV critic in nineteen seventy three who wrote,
I believe for the New York Times that comparing Soul
Train to the old American Bandstand is like comparing Champagne
to seltzer Burns. That had to hurt Dick Clark.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Oh, he did fine.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Well, as far as I could tell. Everything I've ever
heard about him. He was literate, so he very well
could have read that, and if not, somebody may have
read it to him, and it hurt his feelings, there's
no way it didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So we can't talk about SoulTrain without talking about Don Cornelius. No,
Don Cornelius was the host and creator of SoulTrain and
owner and owner, which is huge. Like this guy owned
his own TV show, which was not a very common
thing to happen, still is not a common thing.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
They usually put him in league with Desi Arnetz, who
owned I Love Lucy, and Mike Douglas, who owned the
Mike Douglas Show. Most of the even like the creators
of a show, you didn't own the show that you created,
like you like have some sort of deal with somebody
to help produce it, or a network has exclusive rights
to it, or somebody else at least owns some other
(09:10):
piece of it. This was one hundred percent Don Cornelius's jam.
And there's a legend that kind of goes along with
that that James Brown came on very early on in
like nineteen seventy two or three, and he was like,
so who's backing you on this? Man? And dot thank you.
I can't do a very good James Brown, and Don
(09:31):
Cornelius says, it's just me, James, And apparently James Brown
thought that he didn't fully understand the question, so he
kind of asked it again. Didn't think to rephrase it
in different words, just ask the same question. Don Cornelius
answers them the same way. He says, it's just me, James,
like he got what he's saying, and he was telling
him this is mine, one hundred percent mine. Nobody else
owns it. It's totally my show. And I don't think
(09:53):
anybody else could have done it like Don Cornelius did.
He was perfect for Soul Train, and I think the
reason why is because it came from him, like it
was his creation and his baby.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Should we take a break.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
I'm a little worked up, so yeah maybe so.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
All right, Uh, you're gonna work on your rerun dance.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
We're gonna take a little break, and we'll go back
and talk about young Don Cornelius right after this. I
want to learn about terms horn and college, howadactyle, how
to take a berg all about is gone.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
That's a little hunt.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
We should know.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Word up, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
All right.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So, Young Don was born in Chicago on the South Side,
in the neighborhood of Bronzeville, known as the Black Metropolis.
He was the son of a postal worker and was
a marine. He joined the Marines after high school, fought
in South Korea. After that, comes home to Chicago, sells
cars for a little while, sells insurance for a little while,
(11:14):
and then says, I want to.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Be a cop.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I want to be a popo.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yep, And he was a popo.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Also in there somewhere. He married, I believe, his high
school sweetheart and has two kids. So by the time
he's a cop, he's married with two kids at home,
two sons. And one day there's a story, an urban
legend that, as far as I know, is true, let
me smell it. Well, then it's not an urban legend,
it's just a story. It could be a true urban legend. Okay,
(11:40):
we're going to come up with an entirely different category
right now. Chall right, So Don Cornelius, Officer Cornelis pulls
the guy over, and that guy happened to be the
news director, Roy Wood for a local AM radio station
wvo N, And as Roy Wood is getting this ticket
written up by Officer Cornelius, he's like, hey, man, your
voice is astounding, because if you've never heard Don Cornelius's voice,
(12:05):
press pause right now, go on to YouTube. Just listen
to some soul trained intros from him. He was an
amazingly hip cat with one of the best voices of
all time. Yeah, led Barry White.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
He also pulled over the guy and said license and registration, baby.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, so that helped. Yeah, do it as Sammy Davis
Junior pulling him over.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Now, hey, bab, give me your license and registration.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
That's so good. So anyway, the guy like is like,
you have a really great voice. Have you ever considered
going into radio? And Don Cornelius says, I haven't until now,
but I'm going to give it some thought. And not
only does he give it some thought, it's not clear
whether he actually gave Roy Wood the ticket or not,
but he actually quits being a cop, goes and takes
(12:55):
a three month broadcasting course with a wife and two
sons at home. So this is a pretty big risk
on his part, and tries out for a part as
a radio announcer at WVN and gets hired after a
three month course because his voice was that great and
because his persona was that hip too.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So yes, Don Cornelius, the voice of gold the Golden Tonsils.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Is that what they called the velvet fog. That was
melt or may oh okay, and I just get those
too confused.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And Noel on movie Crush his nickname is Smokey Velvet.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm not sure where that came from. Maybe I made
it up. Smokey gullet, smoky velvet.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Oh, smoky velvet, smoky gullet.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That's really gross.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So he becomes a DJ at the radio station, like
you said, and then is hired as a reporter, a
news reporter on TV for w CiU TV. He covered sports,
he covered civil rights stuff. He had a show for
the news program called a blacks View of the News,
(14:02):
which is, you know something you could only get away
with in the nineteen sixties I.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Think early seventies by nut. Oh, yeah, you're right, it
would have been the sixties. Sorry.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And he interviewed Jesse Jackson, he interviewed Martin Luther King.
Still djaying at night, and he hosted the series of
house parties and club appearances all over Chicago. And he
would take the train to get to these places. So
he called these parties the soul Train. That's where the
name came from.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Yeah, So he's like a TV broadcaster by day radio
DJ and sockhap DJ by night comes up with this
soul train idea. And again, so this is like in
his first year after taking a three month broadcasting course,
after pulling over a radio executive who told him he
had a good voice, and he's like, you know what,
(14:49):
I'm happy doing news and civil rights reporting, and I'm
part of this group called the Good Guys, these black
DJs out of Chicago that were kind of known as
the Arbiters of Cool. But he said that he had
He later said that he had this burning desire to
see black people depicted on television in a positive light,
(15:10):
and he decided that the best way to do that
was to kind of take these parties, these sockhops and
just kind of cool Chicago house parties that he was
DJing and just put him on TV. That like that
would basically be enough that if people just saw how
cool these parties weren't, how fun they were, and how
much like how what a celebration of like black culture
(15:30):
they were just in and of themselves, that that could
be a TV show by itself. And that was the
original soul train.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's right and very key.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
He went to his TV station W CiU and said,
I want to shoot a pilot for this thing, baby,
and they said, uh, sure, but we're not going to
front the money, and he said, I'll pay for it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Little did he know what a fortuitous move that was.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, because I think had they funded it, they would
have had a real claim to it legally. But he
put up four hundred bucks of his own money shot
a pilot. It didn't look that great, it was in
black and white, but it was a big hit immediately.
And he said, not because it was wonderful, but because
it was theirs.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
It belonged to the black people. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
A year later he moves to LA and said, I'm
going to do the show for real here. This is
where it became nationally syndicated, which you know, I don't
know when we talked about TV syndication, but that's basically
when it's not owned and run on a major network,
but you sell it to each local TV station in
whatever city.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yeah. I don't know what we would have talked about
that on either, but I would I think we should
do an entire episode on TV syndication. I'll bet it
was world changing. Sure, So when he moved into Los
Angeles in nineteen seventy one that Black and White Soul Train.
It used to be on every weekday. They continued that,
so it was two things. It was a full color
(16:58):
nationally syndicate hated television show out of la but it
was also a black and white local weekly or weekday
television show out of Chicago at the same time. For
like a good five years, they were both running at
the same time, and so Don Cornelius was at the
helm of both. So on Fridays he would fly out
to La shoot four episodes, two on Saturday, two on Sunday,
(17:22):
and then fly back in time to be there for
the afternoon black and white Monday episode of the Chicago
Local Soul Train.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Amazing working hard.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
He was working hard. Yeah, it's right.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So it was a very popular show right out of
the gate, but advertising was always kind of a struggle
because mainstream brands didn't quite know what to make of it.
They didn't this is kind of the first show of
its kind, but that did open the door for Johnson Products,
another black owned Chicago business from husband and wife team
George and Joeanne Johnson that they started in nineteen fifty four.
(17:58):
And these commercials are.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So great too.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
They sold beauty and hair care products to African Americans.
So Afroshine and Ultraschine were the two big ones and
the two big commercials you see, and they became as
much as part of the fabric of the show almost
as like the Soul Train liner, the performers or anything else.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Really yeah, and I mean, like I think in a
large part because they were they were like our stamps
dot Com, like one of the earliest and longest running sponsors. Right.
So when they came on, what they were promoting with
like with Afrochine and Ultraschine was radical and that it's
saying like just let your hair grow naturally. These are
(18:37):
hair products for African Americans to use when they're growing
their hair naturally, not following like white beauty standards. Right.
So it was like a perfect sponsor for SoulTrain, which
is a celebration of black culture. For itself, the Johnson
family of products were promoting black culture and it's like
(18:57):
natural State too, so it was like just perfect go
hand in hand. I think they kind of worked with
each other but also were important independent of one another.
But when you put them together, it was like greater
than some of its parts even.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and it was. It was a big deal culturally.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Not only was it a big hit, but like people
like Jesse Jackson said, Don Cornelius is right up there
with any civil rights leader of our generation. He gave
people a chance to feel good about themselves.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And like I said, I was a little white kid
watching it. There's this lady, Madeline Weeks, who is a
fashion editor at GQ. She was a little white girl
in Virginia, and she said, I watched Soul Train religiously
every week. Loved it from beginning to end. Even the
Afroshine and Ultrachine ads were heaven. Had the funkiest, most stylish,
sexiest dancers. Everybody looked like they were having the best time.
(19:46):
All the girls look gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to look
like that. I was just a little kid living in
the countryside in Virginia and I live for it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Does something else, it's pretty great.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Well, you want to take a break and then get
back into what it was like to watch.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Soul Train and be on it. You know, I was
a guest.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yes, I can't wait. We're gonna debut that clip live,
all right, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I want to learn about a terri sort and college
rd Actole, how to take a perfect bout is Gone?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
That's another hunt, The Sane Everything.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And John.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck, So we're back.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
There was one little thing that I wanted to include
about w c i U, the original Chicago home of
Soul Train. Apparently it was like a ragtag U HF station,
an independent station. And have you ever seen that that
movie U HF with weird al Nope, it's so good,
but it actually is not too far off from w CiU.
(21:04):
They would play Lithuanian and Polish language talk shows Amos
and Andy Bullfights from Mexico like these are they just
had this weird assemblage of TV shows, But then they're
they're in house. Programming was made by like this ragtag
kind of group of inexperienced people. And there's a I
(21:26):
read in the Chicago Reader this kind of oral history
of the local version of SoulTrain. The head cameraman at
w CiU had strabusmiths and couldn't use the viewfinder in
the camera. It was like that kind of ragtag group
that just kind of got it done somehow.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
I just love that little tidbit.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, all right, So if you watch SoulTrain, the first
thing that you would see when the show starts is
that classic animated intro of that freight train rolling into
the city.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So cool, so iconic.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Then you see Don Cornelius, always dressed to the nines,
the man, coolest cat maybe to ever be on television.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
We make Billy d weep with jealousy.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
He was because he was a DJ previously he was.
He just had that DJ lingo down. Yeah, you know,
they put in one of the things, it's going to
be a stone Gas honey, like all that seventies sort
of shaft like talk was just who Don Cornelius was.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Let me, let me try my hand at it. You ready, Okay,
it's going to be a stone gas honey. Okay, that
sounded like a CB trucker from the seventies somehow interesting.
It's going to be a stone gas honey. I don't
know what my problem is.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Hey, not bad, don't lie to me, Chuck, Josh Cornelius.
You had your musical guest, like we said, just like
American Bandstand. I think sometimes they lip synced and sometimes
they really sang.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
On the lip sync to cross the board.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it kind of depends on who the artist is too,
Patty LaBelle, Barry White, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown,
Al Green, like just a murderer's row of rhythm and
blues and soul performers. I think Gladys Knight and the
Pips was on the first syndicated episode.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, and like that was a huge favor that he
called in and Gladys totally delivered by being on that
first nationally syndicated episode because it drew a lot of attention,
and apparently from that point on he was he was
always very deferential, saying, you know, if it weren't for Gladys,
none of this would be here right now. Oh that's nice, Yeah,
it was pretty Cooliver. Have you ever eaten a Gladys
(23:43):
Knight's House of Chicken and waffles?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (23:46):
I'm thinking you probably have multiple times, but we've never
discussed it.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I mean when I lived in LA I was a
regular at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. But yeah, Gladys Knight
does it right as well.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Yes she does. Have you ever had the smothered chicken there?
I don't think so. Is it like gravy or something. Yes,
and it is even better than the chicken and waffles.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Really, yes, I can't not get the chicken and waffle.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So get both.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, just get both.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
There's no reason to hold back at Gladys Knight's House
of Chicken and waffle.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And eat a little bit of both and take the
rest of home, sure, or eat it all.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yes, so Soul Train, of course that the musical performances
were great and classic and iconic, but it's the dancing
that is what it's really known for. They got they
scouted out some of these dancers. They would go to
the clubs, and they did this on American Bandstand and
other shows too that had dancers. They would go find
(24:42):
like the flyest dancers in the clubs, invite them to
be on the show, and everyone else had to audition,
Like thousands of people would line up and audition with
their dance moves to be a soul trained dancer.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Yeah, and like again, like Common's babysitter was saying, like
that was a big deal to be picked. And some
were recruited like you're saying, from the clubs, and those
those particular dancers were usually so good that they would
rise to like national prominence, like the camera just couldn't
avoid them. They also were no slouches at learning how
(25:16):
to play to the camera too when the camera was
on them or anywhere near them. But one of the
ways that everybody shine too, whether you've got a lot
of camera time or not, was in the the Soul
Train Line, which became a really regular feature of each
episode where everybody just kind of be clapping and standing
on two sides, and then a couple would come down,
(25:37):
usually a couple, sometimes it was solo would come down
and do some crazy dance moves and really get a
chance to show off and kind of capture the attention
of the viewing audience.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, if you've never gone on YouTube and looked at
Soul Train Line videos, first of all, I'm surprised that
you exist as a human. And secondly, just do it
and then look up at the clock two hours later,
because you will be able to do nothing but watch
those video clips.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
And what's cool about it too, is you can put
it to any kind of super cool music and it
sounds really great and looks really great.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
What you like, and mute it and put on different music.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
No, no, but other people have like put their own
tracks or other people's tracks. Oh really, video of soul
train and it works really well.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh interesting, Yeah, I like the real music.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Sure, real music isn't bad either.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, the Jungle Boogie one is really good in particular,
that is a good one. So they'd filmed four episodes
in a weekend. Apparently the dancers were worked pretty hard,
and Cornelius was pretty demanding of them.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You couldn't choot them, you couldn't curse.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
His mantra was be on time, be tactful, be creative,
be funky, and be yourself.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah, they were unpaid too. Typically, I guess you would
be paid if you were dancing to a performer, but
if you were part of the segments that it was
just them playing music and people were dancing, you were unpaid.
I think they'd feed you because again, you're doing two
(27:16):
episodes over two days, so four total, like you were saying,
and I mean, you're dancing like the whole time. And
I'm guessing that these things probably took longer than an hour.
They didn't just do an hour and that was it,
with no retakes or edits or anything like that. So
I'm not sure how long it actually took to film
an actual episode, but you were basically dancing the entire time,
(27:40):
two episodes back to back, twice over a weekend.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I bet it was fun too.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Though I'm sure it was fun too. I was thinking
at the impression that it was a little competitive. Although
there's a guy who frequently gets overshadowed by Don Cornelis,
but was known as his right hand man. His name
was Clinton Ghent, and he was one of the the
kind of co creators of Soul Training, or he was
there from the beginning in Chicago, and he had a
(28:06):
real eye for finding those dancers in the clubs. He
was one of the ones who would go scout dancers,
but not only of finding people who had like really
crazy good moves and getting them to come on to
Soul Train, but of putting all sorts of different dancers
who would normally be pretty competitive with one another, finding
groups that would kind of gel together like a family,
so that when you go back and watch Soul Train episodes,
(28:28):
or when you were watching it when they were coming
on the first time, you weren't like sitting there seeing
like dancers like kind of sniping one another. Backbiting or
pushing each other out of the way. It did kind
of have this really family vibe every episode, and apparently
that was the work of that Clinton Ghent guy who
just really knew how to put people together.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, that GQ editor really nailed it.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Like it just looked like it looked like a party
you wanted to be at, like everyone was.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Having a good time.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So some of the some of these dancers went on
to be famous. We're kind of discovered there. Jody Wattley,
the singer. She started out as a teenager on Soul
Train and Don Cornelius was like, you're super talented, I'm
a businessman. I'm going to pair you with this other guy,
Jeffrey Daniel, and you guys should record music together. And
(29:19):
that little group went on to be Shallamar. Of course,
in nineteen seventy seven they got together, and then.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
After Shallamar, Jody Wattley went on to become Jody Wattley.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You mentioned rerun from What's Happening, Nick Cannon, Carmen Electra,
which I didn't know that she started out there.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
That kind of surprised me.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
I didn't either. Her real name is Tara Lee Patrick.
Did you know that.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I don't know if I did or not. I know
it wasn't Carmen Electra.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah, no, it's not that, although she looks way more
like a Carmen Electra than a Tara Lee Patrick. Yeah, agreed,
doesn't look at all Irish or Southern.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Rosie Perez was maybe one of the biggest names to
come out of SoulTrain. This was in the eighties, because
you know, you think about the salad days of SoulTrain
and you'd probably think of the seventies, but the eighties
were pretty big and it went all the way to
two thousand and six. But in the eighties is when
the hip hop influence came on, and Rosie Perez brought
that Brooklyn, New York City hip hop flavor. And if
(30:24):
you go back and watch some of her stuff on SoulTrain,
it's like the dancing school. It's much different than that
sort of seventies groove. It was that sort of New
York City hip hop style.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Yeah, she does it like the beginning of what does
it do the right thing? Yeah, that's her dancing at
the beginning of it, right.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, that was like straight up SoulTrain. So what she
did on SoulTrain, which is very much not like what
they were doing in La too. So she kind of
rose to prominence as a Soul Train dancer very quickly,
and Don Cornelius apparently was like, hey, I want to
lock you into a contract, and Rosie Perez, being smart,
street wise, Rosie Perez said that's great, I'll show it
(31:06):
to my lawyer. And apparently Don Cornelius didn't like this,
and as the story goes, he grabbed Rosie Perez, which
is not what you do when somebody says that they
want their lawyer to look at a contract you want
them to lock into, or for any reason really, and
to get him all over, she threw a piece of
the fried chicken she was eating at the time right
(31:27):
at his head and hit him in the face.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
That's how the story goes.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
That's how Rosie Perez tells it for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, and you know we should mention too. That is
not cool at all.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And while we're praising Don Cornelius for his talents as
a host, he did later in life when he was
a bit older. Was was he arrested or was he
just charged? I think he was charged with domestic violence
against his Russian Ukrainian wife.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yes, he was at least charged. I don't know if
he was victed, but there was a Yeah, he got
into an entailment because of that, at least accusation that
he had abused her and then also apparently intimidated a
witness into changing their story. He was charged with that
(32:14):
as well. It was from what I understand though, this
all took place over a single night and possibly within
a very short period of time, over single night. Not
at all trying to justify or excuse it, but I
don't know the story behind it at all, but I
think it's worth pointing out like Don Cornelius was not
(32:34):
just as straight up like nothing but a smooth, cool cat.
He was a complex human being who had faults as
well too. Yeah, inflaws and all that. I mean, grabbing
Rosie Perez is bad enough alone.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Sure you know what you get, You get the old
chicken wing to the forehead.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Yeah you do. You would think, like even before she
was a star, you'd know, just hanging out with her
a little bit, not to mess with Rosy Perez.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
No, I would never mess with Rosie Perez.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
He didn't know that his signature sign off was on
Don Cornelius and as always in partying, we wish you love,
peace and soul.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, there were a couple of other people who kind
of rose to prominence too. Cheryl Song she was the
first Asian dancer on SoulTrain, and she said she had
to really kind of prove herself that she wasn't just
like the token non African American dancer, that she was
actually a really good dancer, and she did. And then
Jermaine Stewart, who you might recognize as the singer of
(33:28):
We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off, and that's
pretty cute because he came back home and performed it
on SoulTrain in nineteen eighty six, and when Don Cornelius
was introducing him, he was saying he made good and
we're all very proud of him.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
And like you mentioned, the Irish Carmen Electra, who I
guess stood out because she was river dancing on SoulTrain
and everyone was like, what is that?
Speaker 4 (33:51):
What is that? But then everybody wanted to do it
because it was Carmen Electra doing it.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So SoulTrain was so popular. And Dick Clark, I guess
didn't feel like he had enough money as a TV
mogul and an icon on American Bandstand. So he went, hey,
I'm going to start my own Soul Train and try
and bury Don Cornelius, right, and I'm going to call
(34:16):
it Soul Unlimited.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I'm going to put it on ABC. And it was.
You can see clips of it on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It didn't last long, but it was a literal ripoff
of Soul Train. And you might say Soul Train was
a ripoff of American Bandstand, fair enough, but for him
to go after the African American market like that, I
don't think was very cool.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
No, it isn't very cool. I could see Dick Clark
being a little blind to the larger implications of it.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And you know, I don't know if if he was
involved in it's canceling or not, but you know, some
black leaders did get it canceled. They started a campaign
to say, like, no, just leave this one alone. I
don't know if how easily Clark went along with her
or not. I like to think he was like, oh, okay,
I see the era of my ways now and dropped it.
But yeah, only a few episodes came out either way,
(35:08):
SoulTrain was left to like stand on its own. You
know yeah, which and I think rightfully so too.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, yeah, there were other performers. Later on they would
have white performers. David Bowie very famously was on there.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh no, did you watch that?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
He did did ah, it was awful, did a pretty
bad lip sync job, which Cornelius gave him kind of
teased him about. And then Elton John who was who
was always had a pretty big following in the African
American community.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I know that, did you?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah? Yeah, he wrote. He wrote about it in his
autobiography that I read last year.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I think it started when Aretha Franklin covered burned Down
the Mission. If I'm not mistaken, Okay, is that the
one she recorded. I think that's the way it went down.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I've never heard of that song before.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
What is wrong with you? You've never heard burn Down the Mission?
Speaker 4 (35:58):
I don't think so. I'm not the biggest Elton John fan.
I mean, I'm fine with him, but I really don't
like a lot of his seventies stuff, like a lot.
I really don't like it. Wow, But I like his
any stuff, like the whole I'm still standing thing.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Okay, it's good.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
It was burned Down the Mission before that.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, Yeah, that was that was a nice My follow.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Up question is what what what problem did he have
with the mission? He didn't write it, Okay, Bernie Toppin
wrote all his lyrics. Oh I see now I am
a Bernie Toppin fan.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
You're a national treasure.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
So Elton John was on a couple of times, and
it's pretty sweet if you look at the one. I'm
not sure if it was the Philadelphia Freedom one or I.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Hate that song or the other one.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
It's such a good song.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
But he they you know, he takes questions and you
can tell he's kind of shy and a little nervous,
and he takes some questions from the from the people,
from the dancers and stuff, which was kind of cool.
But it's just very sweet to see how nervous he was.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, because he's known for being a humble, humble spirit,
is he No have you ever seen that the documentary
they made or he self made or no, his partner made.
His partner was the only one he would let, you know,
fallow him around with the camera, which is pretty understandable.
But he came out in the last like I don't know,
(37:21):
decade or less.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, the tantrums and tierras.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I think, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great, man,
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, he's good. I like that Rocketman movie a lot too.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
I have not seen that. I saw it. I saw
it over someone else's shoulders on a plane.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
You wouldn't like it, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I know, it didn't look like anything I would like.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
No, if you don't like Elton John, you wouldn't like
the movie about Elton John.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
No.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And again, sir Elton, I have no problem with you personally.
It's just that that period through seventies, the seventies, like
Crocodile Rock, the one about like Philadelphia Freedom.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You know, all those bad seventies albums Madman Across the
Water and Captain Fantastic and by yelbrick Row, those are
all terrible.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Exactly. I feel understood.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Check thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So the eighties come along and nineteen eighty three Don
Cornelius has brain surgery, takes a little time off, he
comes back. SoulTrain has changed their look a little bit
to try and fit with kind of what's going on
at the time, with like Whitney Houston and people like that.
And then hip hop and rap come along and apparently
(38:28):
Don Cornelius is not a big fan.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Uh yeah, I think I read I can't remember. I
read a really great article in Dazed about it, or
there's another pretty good one that was a review of
the recent TV biopic about him and SoulTrain on The Guardian,
and it basically explained it like that Don Cornelius was
like a mid century integration minded black businessman and that
(38:57):
he and his ilk and generation they had been working toward, like,
you know, getting a piece of the pie that didn't
necessarily it wasn't the white pie. It was the pie
that white people controlled. And if you were you know,
if you if you made your way to get a
piece of this that like you could you could be
black and still enjoy the good life. And that hip
(39:19):
hop reminded him of everything that he and his generation
had kind of tried to work beyond and pasted and
to integrate, and that to him it was a step backwards.
So he wasn't vibing on it at all. My own
personal take is that he was a smooth customer and
he appreciated smoothness, and hip hop, especially eighties hip hop,
(39:43):
was the opposite of smooth, and so he was not
vibing on it at all, and he even referred to
himself as an old guy sometimes when he was interviewing
you know, some of the hip hop artists who came
on Soul Train in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I watched one of the Public Enemy clips and
it was weird. Afterward he like he basically ignores Chuck
D and like talks only to Flavor Flave.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
And then finally turns to Chuck It was like, and now,
Chuck D.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
He said, you must feel so blessed to have have
someone as talented as Flavor as your partner. What really,
it was really weird, and Chuck D was like, yeah,
you know, he's quite a character, as you can see. Yeah,
I just I don't know. It really came off as
like Don Cornelius doesn't understand this. I'm not dissing Flave,
(40:33):
but like Chuck D was like the he was the
leader of that band, you know.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Yeah, he was the brains behind the outfit for sure.
And I mean like, yeah, Flavor Flaves just like he's
he's like fills in the kind of hardness of Chuck D. Yeah,
I don't Yeah, if you think Public Enemy, it's definitely
Flavor Flavor and Chuck D. But it's Chuck D.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
And then Flavor Flave.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, it was definitely a strange interview because I thought,
finally he's going to talk to Chuck D. And he's like,
you must feel so good about having this guy as
your partner.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
Which one was that after? Because they were on at
least twice on the regular show by my count, and
then once on the Soul Train Awards at least you
don't remember. So it's not like he wasn't smart enough
to know that they were big and should be on anyway,
whether he liked him or not. But they did they
can't trust it in nineteen ninety one, and they did
Rubble without a Pause in nineteen eighty seven, and I
(41:29):
could not find the interview segment. I just saw, like
the performance, No, both like really great.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Well, it was very sweet and actually it would have
had to been the nineties one because afterward Flavor Flave
asked for a a moment of silence for the passing
of Miles Davis and Red Fox.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And they take a moment of silence.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
That's awesome, h it was cool. So and that's actually
just in case we haven't gotten this across enough yet
Soul Train again, was it never got away from like
it's black roots, like it never sold out or anything
like that. Like it was, like, that makes perfect sense
that they would include that part. They wouldn't just edit
that out in the episode that they published. Yeah, that
(42:16):
was just part of it. Even as late as the
early nineties.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, in the early nineties is when Don Cornelius finally
had to step down. May tenth, nineteen ninety three was
his final episode. He passed it on to the younger generation.
It went all the way to two thousand and six
and became the longest running syndicated show in TV history.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Yeah, thirty five seasons amazing and those younger that younger
generation that he handed the reins over to. Some of
the temporary hosts included Jamie Fox got his start, Tyra
Banks and Shamar Moore from Criminal Minds. He was a
long time stand in host. Really, Yeah, he's big time manh.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I don't know who that is.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I don't Watchdal Minds either, but you've seen enough like
ads for Criminal Minds that you would recognize. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Very Sadly, Don Cornelius took his own life. He was
suffering from Alzheimer's and apparently he was having a lot
of seizures and just in a pretty bad way physically,
and his son said that that was the reason why he.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Took his own life.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Yeah, well, Puss. He'd also sold the rights i think
to Soul Train too, and it seems like things kind
of started to go downhill for him around then, I
think in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But yeah, apparently it was a really big surprise to
everybody who knew him that he died by suicide, that
that was not the perceived outcome for him, I think. Yeah,
but his legacy lives on. Like you said, I mean,
the thirty five seasons the longest running syndicated television show
of all time. In and of itself, it's an incredible achievement,
(43:56):
but also to be like a cornerstone of like introducing
black culture as black culture to the larger culture as
a whole in white culture huge is Yeah. I mean,
that's about as big an accomplishment as you can make.
It's like Jesse Jackson said, he was as important as
any civil rights leader.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yep, you know.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
So that's Don Cornelius and Soul Train. That's how ed
if you want to know more about that. You don't
need to know anything else. Just start go watching clips
of Soul Train and you will be a happier person
than you were before you started.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, get ready for some sick robot action.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
It's so great. And rerun too. You can't forget about
rerun fred Berry.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
No, that's sweet.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Well, since we talked about fred Berry, that means everybody.
Obviously it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
This is about Iron Maiden.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Hey, guys, listen to your short stuff on six sixty
six and loved it more so for Josh's thoughts on
Iron Maiden, hardest working band of business seeing them twice.
I've been a Maiden fan for about fifteen years, and
I got to say Josh was right on the money
when he said Power Slave was the album to listen
to if you've never really given them a chance. So chuck,
whip out that old bean bag, roll up a fatty,
(45:15):
crack open a cold one, and crank up some Maiden.
You'll be glad you did. Also, just want to say
thank you both for the awesome work you do. I'm spewing,
which must be Australian for angry, he says, I'm spewing
because I couldn't get to your show when you came
to Perth.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
I think, so, yeah, yeah, you missed a good show
that I was thinking about how cool that town was
the other day.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, Perth was cool.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Your discussion and delivery of interesting, exciting topics week after
week transmute information and understanding into very enjoyable entertainment into
my ear holes, bringing much joy not just to my
commute but.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
To my work life.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Lots of love from Mandura, Western Australia, and that is
from Tie Ty.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
I like this person.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
First of all, Tie says that I'm right, which I love. Yeah,
likes Iron Maiden, loves Iron Maiden. You could say, and
it is upset that they missed our show.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
We'll be back.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Sure we will be Hey, you know, we're like number
one in Australia as far as podcasts go.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Right now, I heard that. Man, they're practically begging for
us to come back.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
We'll come back and we'll definitely go to Perth again.
So don't worry, Ty, we'll be there. Just keep an
ear up, keep your ear holes out.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
If you want to be cool like Tye and get
in touch with us, you can do that, You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
You Know Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 4 (46:46):
You listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's Chuck here.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's April twenty first, twenty twenty on our COVID timeline
here for the Saturday Trip down Memory Lane. This is
a really fun episode, so I'm very excited to recommend
this app from April twenty first, the Soul Train episode
where we took a fun look back at the great,
great TV show that was So.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Train.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and
there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and this is
stuff you should know. Not bad, let's hear yours. I
know you can do it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
The Soul Train it's so much higher than that.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
That was good, though, but you dropped it down into
your range and it's still was. You made it to
your own I think, is what I'm trying to say,
and I.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Like it, which is old white guy version.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
So you're not old, You're just middle aged.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Okay, sure, well let me ask you this, Chuck. Were
you aware of Soul Train while it was on?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, okay, then your Super Bowl?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I love Soul Train.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Sure, so I was a solid gold man myself. But
I can get on some Soul Train for sure, especially
like vintage stuff these days.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I mean I've watched Solid Gold to be sure,
an American Bandstand, But I was just a a rabid
consumer of popular culture and television and music growing up,
so before MTV came along and completely changed my life,
because that's all I watched was shows like Soul Train
(01:52):
were where I could because you know, often I couldn't
stay up to watch late night tea talk shows where
you see performances like this is where I got to
see live music before I could start go seeing live music.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Right, Oh, yeah, that was and that was a huge
draw of it for sure. Like the idea of just
being able to tune in on Saturday at eleven am,
depending on where you were and seeing like a somebody
like Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder perform like that was
that was a big deal, especially like you're saying, if
you were too young and fell asleep too early to
go to a proper show, that's right, but even more
(02:26):
than that, and like that was a huge, huge mark
that Soul Train left was just presenting that. But that
had been done before there was American band Stand. There
are all sorts of like kind of dance party TV shows.
So it didn't exactly pioneer in that sense, but what
it did pioneer in is that the people that was
presenting African Americans teenagers who were hip and their own
(02:51):
people and part of black culture, and presenting it in
a way that like was an apologetic that wasn't critical,
that did didn't portray it in some sort of negative
light or in a way that you know, was trying
to get white people to understand it. Just presenting it
as it was and celebrating it. That's where SoulTrain like
(03:12):
really broke through. And it's very very difficult to overstate
how revolutionary and groundbreaking SoulTrain was, especially for how simple
this show format was.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Basically, Yeah, I mean, like you said, bandstand had been
around since nineteen fifty two, and this, you know, kind
of was known as the Black American Bandstand, and it
followed that format. It was, you know, people, a live
music performance, a host interviewing and talking to these people
these musicians afterward briefly, and then beyond that just awesome
(03:50):
music spinning on the turntable and amazing dancing, amazing outfits,
amazing hair styles, and just to celebrate of black culture.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And the point is made in this in this article
that they put together for us, but.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It was it was definitely by.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Black people and four black people, but it was an
introduction to black culture to white kids like me, little
eight year old Chuck in Stone Mountain, Georgia sitting around
watching the Soul Train dance line.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah, I can imagine. It was mind blowing, Chuck, Like
I think it wasn't just you know, it wasn't like
you were necessarily sheltered where you were growing up. Whether
you were or not, it kind of doesn't matter. It
was that there there was no place for you to
be exposed to this prior to Soul Train, that if
you saw a black guy on TV, it was say
(04:46):
on the news and he was being arrested for something,
or they you know, he was involved in a protest
and the protest was kind of presented in a particularly negative,
agitated light, or he was a side on TV or
a servant or in some kind of goofy comedy or
something like that. Like in Soul Train and do that.
(05:08):
There was no there was no subscribing to all like
the preconceived notions that there have been before it was
just its own thing. It was like, hey, by the
way we've been you know, we have our own culture
over here. You guys have ignored all this time. We're
gonna put it on TV and show it often. If
you like it, awesome, if you don't get lost.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, And Dave I thought it was kind of astute
that he said it was kind of like a lifestyle
brand before that was such a thing because these people
were influencers. What you saw on Soul Train, you wanted
to dance like that, You wanted to wear those clothes.
If someone debuted a sweet move that you saw on
(05:48):
Saturday morning, you would practice that move in your living
room and then debut it at your club that night.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
And there were like some pretty sweet moves that were
debuted on Soul Trained. The Sweetest we did an entire
episode on the Moonwalk, if you'll remember correctly, and that
was originally called the backslide that was created on Soul Train.
The robot, the rerun ding it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Man, there's so much sweet roboting going on.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, yeah, and that's where it came from. Apparently no
one did the robot, and like these were like basically
club kids who now had a place to do their
club stuff on TV and then go out to the
clubs later that night and do some more and like
come up with more stuff, and they'd come bring it
to SoulTrain again. And then kids would watch that. Kids,
(06:35):
college kids, adults would watch this and be like, this
is the coolest thing that's on TV right now, and
I want to do those dance moves too.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Let's read a couple of these quotes that kind of
encapsulate how important of a show this was. One is
from philosopher, activists and Harvard professor Cornell West. He said,
I never missed it Saturday morning as a graduate at
a student at Princeton. I would see it wherever I
was available to the world. One of the great traditions
in American history, which is a history of soul music.
(07:05):
Soul music at its best, taught America, especially young Americans,
about color, how to be free, and how to love
in a deeper and better way. And this from common
the actor and rapper. Watching my babysitter get the opportunity
to go on Soul Train was like a dream come
true for her because Soul Train was the biggest thing
then for the black community. It gave ordinary everyday people
(07:28):
an opportunity to express themselves. It showed us that we
too have a place on TV.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, and I can't imagine what commons babysitter, How excited
she must have been to get to be on Soul Train.
Oh yeah, like that must have been the biggest thing possible.
Like they said it was the hippus trip on television,
and like that was not much of an exaggeration, especially
at the time, especially when you compared it to like
American Bandstand at the time, which when Soul Train came along,
(07:56):
you said, bansand had been on since nineteen fifty two,
almost two decades by this time. SoulTrain comes along. And
there was a TV critic in nineteen seventy three who wrote,
I believe for the New York Times that comparing Soul
Train to the old American Bandstand is like comparing Champagne
to seltzer Burns. That had to hurt Dick Clark.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Oh, he did fine.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Well, as far as I could tell. Everything I've ever
heard about him. He was literate, so he very well
could have read that, and if not, somebody may have
read it to him, and it hurt his feelings, there's
no way it didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So we can't talk about SoulTrain without talking about Don Cornelius. No,
Don Cornelius was the host and creator of SoulTrain and
owner and owner, which is huge. Like this guy owned
his own TV show, which was not a very common
thing to happen, still is not a common thing.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
They usually put him in league with Desi Arnetz, who
owned I Love Lucy, and Mike Douglas, who owned the
Mike Douglas Show. Most of the even like the creators
of a show, you didn't own the show that you created,
like you like have some sort of deal with somebody
to help produce it, or a network has exclusive rights
to it, or somebody else at least owns some other
(09:10):
piece of it. This was one hundred percent Don Cornelius's jam.
And there's a legend that kind of goes along with
that that James Brown came on very early on in
like nineteen seventy two or three, and he was like,
so who's backing you on this? Man? And dot thank you.
I can't do a very good James Brown, and Don
(09:31):
Cornelius says, it's just me, James, And apparently James Brown
thought that he didn't fully understand the question, so he
kind of asked it again. Didn't think to rephrase it
in different words, just ask the same question. Don Cornelius
answers them the same way. He says, it's just me, James,
like he got what he's saying, and he was telling
him this is mine, one hundred percent mine. Nobody else
owns it. It's totally my show. And I don't think
(09:53):
anybody else could have done it like Don Cornelius did.
He was perfect for Soul Train, and I think the
reason why is because it came from him, like it
was his creation and his baby.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Should we take a break.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
I'm a little worked up, so yeah maybe so.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
All right, Uh, you're gonna work on your rerun dance.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
We're gonna take a little break, and we'll go back
and talk about young Don Cornelius right after this. I
want to learn about terms horn and college, howadactyle, how
to take a berg all about is gone.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
That's a little hunt.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
We should know.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Word up, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
All right.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So, Young Don was born in Chicago on the South Side,
in the neighborhood of Bronzeville, known as the Black Metropolis.
He was the son of a postal worker and was
a marine. He joined the Marines after high school, fought
in South Korea. After that, comes home to Chicago, sells
cars for a little while, sells insurance for a little while,
(11:14):
and then says, I want to.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Be a cop.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I want to be a popo.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yep, And he was a popo.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Also in there somewhere. He married, I believe, his high
school sweetheart and has two kids. So by the time
he's a cop, he's married with two kids at home,
two sons. And one day there's a story, an urban
legend that, as far as I know, is true, let
me smell it. Well, then it's not an urban legend,
it's just a story. It could be a true urban legend. Okay,
(11:40):
we're going to come up with an entirely different category
right now. Chall right, So Don Cornelius, Officer Cornelis pulls
the guy over, and that guy happened to be the
news director, Roy Wood for a local AM radio station
wvo N, And as Roy Wood is getting this ticket
written up by Officer Cornelius, he's like, hey, man, your
voice is astounding, because if you've never heard Don Cornelius's voice,
(12:05):
press pause right now, go on to YouTube. Just listen
to some soul trained intros from him. He was an
amazingly hip cat with one of the best voices of
all time. Yeah, led Barry White.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
He also pulled over the guy and said license and registration, baby.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, so that helped. Yeah, do it as Sammy Davis
Junior pulling him over.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Now, hey, bab, give me your license and registration.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
That's so good. So anyway, the guy like is like,
you have a really great voice. Have you ever considered
going into radio? And Don Cornelius says, I haven't until now,
but I'm going to give it some thought. And not
only does he give it some thought, it's not clear
whether he actually gave Roy Wood the ticket or not,
but he actually quits being a cop, goes and takes
(12:55):
a three month broadcasting course with a wife and two
sons at home. So this is a pretty big risk
on his part, and tries out for a part as
a radio announcer at WVN and gets hired after a
three month course because his voice was that great and
because his persona was that hip too.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So yes, Don Cornelius, the voice of gold the Golden Tonsils.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Is that what they called the velvet fog. That was
melt or may oh okay, and I just get those
too confused.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And Noel on movie Crush his nickname is Smokey Velvet.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm not sure where that came from. Maybe I made
it up. Smokey gullet, smoky velvet.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Oh, smoky velvet, smoky gullet.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That's really gross.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So he becomes a DJ at the radio station, like
you said, and then is hired as a reporter, a
news reporter on TV for w CiU TV. He covered sports,
he covered civil rights stuff. He had a show for
the news program called a blacks View of the News,
(14:02):
which is, you know something you could only get away
with in the nineteen sixties I.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Think early seventies by nut. Oh, yeah, you're right, it
would have been the sixties. Sorry.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And he interviewed Jesse Jackson, he interviewed Martin Luther King.
Still djaying at night, and he hosted the series of
house parties and club appearances all over Chicago. And he
would take the train to get to these places. So
he called these parties the soul Train. That's where the
name came from.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Yeah, So he's like a TV broadcaster by day radio
DJ and sockhap DJ by night comes up with this
soul train idea. And again, so this is like in
his first year after taking a three month broadcasting course,
after pulling over a radio executive who told him he
had a good voice, and he's like, you know what,
(14:49):
I'm happy doing news and civil rights reporting, and I'm
part of this group called the Good Guys, these black
DJs out of Chicago that were kind of known as
the Arbiters of Cool. But he said that he had
He later said that he had this burning desire to
see black people depicted on television in a positive light,
(15:10):
and he decided that the best way to do that
was to kind of take these parties, these sockhops and
just kind of cool Chicago house parties that he was
DJing and just put him on TV. That like that
would basically be enough that if people just saw how
cool these parties weren't, how fun they were, and how
much like how what a celebration of like black culture
(15:30):
they were just in and of themselves, that that could
be a TV show by itself. And that was the
original soul train.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's right and very key.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
He went to his TV station W CiU and said,
I want to shoot a pilot for this thing, baby,
and they said, uh, sure, but we're not going to
front the money, and he said, I'll pay for it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Little did he know what a fortuitous move that was.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, because I think had they funded it, they would
have had a real claim to it legally. But he
put up four hundred bucks of his own money shot
a pilot. It didn't look that great, it was in
black and white, but it was a big hit immediately.
And he said, not because it was wonderful, but because
it was theirs.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
It belonged to the black people. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
A year later he moves to LA and said, I'm
going to do the show for real here. This is
where it became nationally syndicated, which you know, I don't
know when we talked about TV syndication, but that's basically
when it's not owned and run on a major network,
but you sell it to each local TV station in
whatever city.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yeah. I don't know what we would have talked about
that on either, but I would I think we should
do an entire episode on TV syndication. I'll bet it
was world changing. Sure, So when he moved into Los
Angeles in nineteen seventy one that Black and White Soul Train.
It used to be on every weekday. They continued that,
so it was two things. It was a full color
(16:58):
nationally syndicate hated television show out of la but it
was also a black and white local weekly or weekday
television show out of Chicago at the same time. For
like a good five years, they were both running at
the same time, and so Don Cornelius was at the
helm of both. So on Fridays he would fly out
to La shoot four episodes, two on Saturday, two on Sunday,
(17:22):
and then fly back in time to be there for
the afternoon black and white Monday episode of the Chicago
Local Soul Train.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Amazing working hard.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
He was working hard. Yeah, it's right.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So it was a very popular show right out of
the gate, but advertising was always kind of a struggle
because mainstream brands didn't quite know what to make of it.
They didn't this is kind of the first show of
its kind, but that did open the door for Johnson Products,
another black owned Chicago business from husband and wife team
George and Joeanne Johnson that they started in nineteen fifty four.
(17:58):
And these commercials are.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So great too.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
They sold beauty and hair care products to African Americans.
So Afroshine and Ultraschine were the two big ones and
the two big commercials you see, and they became as
much as part of the fabric of the show almost
as like the Soul Train liner, the performers or anything else.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Really yeah, and I mean, like I think in a
large part because they were they were like our stamps
dot Com, like one of the earliest and longest running sponsors. Right.
So when they came on, what they were promoting with
like with Afrochine and Ultraschine was radical and that it's
saying like just let your hair grow naturally. These are
(18:37):
hair products for African Americans to use when they're growing
their hair naturally, not following like white beauty standards. Right.
So it was like a perfect sponsor for SoulTrain, which
is a celebration of black culture. For itself, the Johnson
family of products were promoting black culture and it's like
(18:57):
natural State too, so it was like just perfect go
hand in hand. I think they kind of worked with
each other but also were important independent of one another.
But when you put them together, it was like greater
than some of its parts even.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and it was. It was a big deal culturally.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Not only was it a big hit, but like people
like Jesse Jackson said, Don Cornelius is right up there
with any civil rights leader of our generation. He gave
people a chance to feel good about themselves.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And like I said, I was a little white kid
watching it. There's this lady, Madeline Weeks, who is a
fashion editor at GQ. She was a little white girl
in Virginia, and she said, I watched Soul Train religiously
every week. Loved it from beginning to end. Even the
Afroshine and Ultrachine ads were heaven. Had the funkiest, most stylish,
sexiest dancers. Everybody looked like they were having the best time.
(19:46):
All the girls look gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to look
like that. I was just a little kid living in
the countryside in Virginia and I live for it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Does something else, it's pretty great.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Well, you want to take a break and then get
back into what it was like to watch.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Soul Train and be on it. You know, I was
a guest.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yes, I can't wait. We're gonna debut that clip live,
all right, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I want to learn about a terri sort and college
rd Actole, how to take a perfect bout is Gone?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
That's another hunt, The Sane Everything.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And John.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck, So we're back.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
There was one little thing that I wanted to include
about w c i U, the original Chicago home of
Soul Train. Apparently it was like a ragtag U HF station,
an independent station. And have you ever seen that that
movie U HF with weird al Nope, it's so good,
but it actually is not too far off from w CiU.
(21:04):
They would play Lithuanian and Polish language talk shows Amos
and Andy Bullfights from Mexico like these are they just
had this weird assemblage of TV shows, But then they're
they're in house. Programming was made by like this ragtag
kind of group of inexperienced people. And there's a I
(21:26):
read in the Chicago Reader this kind of oral history
of the local version of SoulTrain. The head cameraman at
w CiU had strabusmiths and couldn't use the viewfinder in
the camera. It was like that kind of ragtag group
that just kind of got it done somehow.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
I just love that little tidbit.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, all right, So if you watch SoulTrain, the first
thing that you would see when the show starts is
that classic animated intro of that freight train rolling into
the city.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So cool, so iconic.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Then you see Don Cornelius, always dressed to the nines,
the man, coolest cat maybe to ever be on television.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
We make Billy d weep with jealousy.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
He was because he was a DJ previously he was.
He just had that DJ lingo down. Yeah, you know,
they put in one of the things, it's going to
be a stone Gas honey, like all that seventies sort
of shaft like talk was just who Don Cornelius was.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Let me, let me try my hand at it. You ready, Okay,
it's going to be a stone gas honey. Okay, that
sounded like a CB trucker from the seventies somehow interesting.
It's going to be a stone gas honey. I don't
know what my problem is.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Hey, not bad, don't lie to me, Chuck, Josh Cornelius.
You had your musical guest, like we said, just like
American Bandstand. I think sometimes they lip synced and sometimes
they really sang.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
On the lip sync to cross the board.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it kind of depends on who the artist is too,
Patty LaBelle, Barry White, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown,
Al Green, like just a murderer's row of rhythm and
blues and soul performers. I think Gladys Knight and the
Pips was on the first syndicated episode.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, and like that was a huge favor that he
called in and Gladys totally delivered by being on that
first nationally syndicated episode because it drew a lot of attention,
and apparently from that point on he was he was
always very deferential, saying, you know, if it weren't for Gladys,
none of this would be here right now. Oh that's nice, Yeah,
it was pretty Cooliver. Have you ever eaten a Gladys
(23:43):
Knight's House of Chicken and waffles?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (23:46):
I'm thinking you probably have multiple times, but we've never
discussed it.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I mean when I lived in LA I was a
regular at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. But yeah, Gladys Knight
does it right as well.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Yes she does. Have you ever had the smothered chicken there?
I don't think so. Is it like gravy or something. Yes,
and it is even better than the chicken and waffles.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Really, yes, I can't not get the chicken and waffle.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So get both.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, just get both.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
There's no reason to hold back at Gladys Knight's House
of Chicken and waffle.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And eat a little bit of both and take the
rest of home, sure, or eat it all.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yes, so Soul Train, of course that the musical performances
were great and classic and iconic, but it's the dancing
that is what it's really known for. They got they
scouted out some of these dancers. They would go to
the clubs, and they did this on American Bandstand and
other shows too that had dancers. They would go find
(24:42):
like the flyest dancers in the clubs, invite them to
be on the show, and everyone else had to audition,
Like thousands of people would line up and audition with
their dance moves to be a soul trained dancer.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Yeah, and like again, like Common's babysitter was saying, like
that was a big deal to be picked. And some
were recruited like you're saying, from the clubs, and those
those particular dancers were usually so good that they would
rise to like national prominence, like the camera just couldn't
avoid them. They also were no slouches at learning how
(25:16):
to play to the camera too when the camera was
on them or anywhere near them. But one of the
ways that everybody shine too, whether you've got a lot
of camera time or not, was in the the Soul
Train Line, which became a really regular feature of each
episode where everybody just kind of be clapping and standing
on two sides, and then a couple would come down,
(25:37):
usually a couple, sometimes it was solo would come down
and do some crazy dance moves and really get a
chance to show off and kind of capture the attention
of the viewing audience.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, if you've never gone on YouTube and looked at
Soul Train Line videos, first of all, I'm surprised that
you exist as a human. And secondly, just do it
and then look up at the clock two hours later,
because you will be able to do nothing but watch
those video clips.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
And what's cool about it too, is you can put
it to any kind of super cool music and it
sounds really great and looks really great.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
What you like, and mute it and put on different music.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
No, no, but other people have like put their own
tracks or other people's tracks. Oh really, video of soul
train and it works really well.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh interesting, Yeah, I like the real music.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Sure, real music isn't bad either.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, the Jungle Boogie one is really good in particular,
that is a good one. So they'd filmed four episodes
in a weekend. Apparently the dancers were worked pretty hard,
and Cornelius was pretty demanding of them.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You couldn't choot them, you couldn't curse.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
His mantra was be on time, be tactful, be creative,
be funky, and be yourself.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah, they were unpaid too. Typically, I guess you would
be paid if you were dancing to a performer, but
if you were part of the segments that it was
just them playing music and people were dancing, you were unpaid.
I think they'd feed you because again, you're doing two
(27:16):
episodes over two days, so four total, like you were saying,
and I mean, you're dancing like the whole time. And
I'm guessing that these things probably took longer than an hour.
They didn't just do an hour and that was it,
with no retakes or edits or anything like that. So
I'm not sure how long it actually took to film
an actual episode, but you were basically dancing the entire time,
(27:40):
two episodes back to back, twice over a weekend.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I bet it was fun too.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Though I'm sure it was fun too. I was thinking
at the impression that it was a little competitive. Although
there's a guy who frequently gets overshadowed by Don Cornelis,
but was known as his right hand man. His name
was Clinton Ghent, and he was one of the the
kind of co creators of Soul Training, or he was
there from the beginning in Chicago, and he had a
(28:06):
real eye for finding those dancers in the clubs. He
was one of the ones who would go scout dancers,
but not only of finding people who had like really
crazy good moves and getting them to come on to
Soul Train, but of putting all sorts of different dancers
who would normally be pretty competitive with one another, finding
groups that would kind of gel together like a family,
so that when you go back and watch Soul Train episodes,
(28:28):
or when you were watching it when they were coming
on the first time, you weren't like sitting there seeing
like dancers like kind of sniping one another. Backbiting or
pushing each other out of the way. It did kind
of have this really family vibe every episode, and apparently
that was the work of that Clinton Ghent guy who
just really knew how to put people together.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, that GQ editor really nailed it.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Like it just looked like it looked like a party
you wanted to be at, like everyone was.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Having a good time.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So some of the some of these dancers went on
to be famous. We're kind of discovered there. Jody Wattley,
the singer. She started out as a teenager on Soul
Train and Don Cornelius was like, you're super talented, I'm
a businessman. I'm going to pair you with this other guy,
Jeffrey Daniel, and you guys should record music together. And
(29:19):
that little group went on to be Shallamar. Of course,
in nineteen seventy seven they got together, and then.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
After Shallamar, Jody Wattley went on to become Jody Wattley.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You mentioned rerun from What's Happening, Nick Cannon, Carmen Electra,
which I didn't know that she started out there.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
That kind of surprised me.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
I didn't either. Her real name is Tara Lee Patrick.
Did you know that.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I don't know if I did or not. I know
it wasn't Carmen Electra.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah, no, it's not that, although she looks way more
like a Carmen Electra than a Tara Lee Patrick. Yeah, agreed,
doesn't look at all Irish or Southern.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Rosie Perez was maybe one of the biggest names to
come out of SoulTrain. This was in the eighties, because
you know, you think about the salad days of SoulTrain
and you'd probably think of the seventies, but the eighties
were pretty big and it went all the way to
two thousand and six. But in the eighties is when
the hip hop influence came on, and Rosie Perez brought
that Brooklyn, New York City hip hop flavor. And if
(30:24):
you go back and watch some of her stuff on SoulTrain,
it's like the dancing school. It's much different than that
sort of seventies groove. It was that sort of New
York City hip hop style.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Yeah, she does it like the beginning of what does
it do the right thing? Yeah, that's her dancing at
the beginning of it, right.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, that was like straight up SoulTrain. So what she
did on SoulTrain, which is very much not like what
they were doing in La too. So she kind of
rose to prominence as a Soul Train dancer very quickly,
and Don Cornelius apparently was like, hey, I want to
lock you into a contract, and Rosie Perez, being smart,
street wise, Rosie Perez said that's great, I'll show it
(31:06):
to my lawyer. And apparently Don Cornelius didn't like this,
and as the story goes, he grabbed Rosie Perez, which
is not what you do when somebody says that they
want their lawyer to look at a contract you want
them to lock into, or for any reason really, and
to get him all over, she threw a piece of
the fried chicken she was eating at the time right
(31:27):
at his head and hit him in the face.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
That's how the story goes.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
That's how Rosie Perez tells it for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, and you know we should mention too. That is
not cool at all.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And while we're praising Don Cornelius for his talents as
a host, he did later in life when he was
a bit older. Was was he arrested or was he
just charged? I think he was charged with domestic violence
against his Russian Ukrainian wife.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yes, he was at least charged. I don't know if
he was victed, but there was a Yeah, he got
into an entailment because of that, at least accusation that
he had abused her and then also apparently intimidated a
witness into changing their story. He was charged with that
(32:14):
as well. It was from what I understand though, this
all took place over a single night and possibly within
a very short period of time, over single night. Not
at all trying to justify or excuse it, but I
don't know the story behind it at all, but I
think it's worth pointing out like Don Cornelius was not
(32:34):
just as straight up like nothing but a smooth, cool cat.
He was a complex human being who had faults as
well too. Yeah, inflaws and all that. I mean, grabbing
Rosie Perez is bad enough alone.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Sure you know what you get, You get the old
chicken wing to the forehead.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Yeah you do. You would think, like even before she
was a star, you'd know, just hanging out with her
a little bit, not to mess with Rosy Perez.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
No, I would never mess with Rosie Perez.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
He didn't know that his signature sign off was on
Don Cornelius and as always in partying, we wish you love,
peace and soul.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, there were a couple of other people who kind
of rose to prominence too. Cheryl Song she was the
first Asian dancer on SoulTrain, and she said she had
to really kind of prove herself that she wasn't just
like the token non African American dancer, that she was
actually a really good dancer, and she did. And then
Jermaine Stewart, who you might recognize as the singer of
(33:28):
We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off, and that's
pretty cute because he came back home and performed it
on SoulTrain in nineteen eighty six, and when Don Cornelius
was introducing him, he was saying he made good and
we're all very proud of him.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
And like you mentioned, the Irish Carmen Electra, who I
guess stood out because she was river dancing on SoulTrain
and everyone was like, what is that?
Speaker 4 (33:51):
What is that? But then everybody wanted to do it
because it was Carmen Electra doing it.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So SoulTrain was so popular. And Dick Clark, I guess
didn't feel like he had enough money as a TV
mogul and an icon on American Bandstand. So he went, hey,
I'm going to start my own Soul Train and try
and bury Don Cornelius, right, and I'm going to call
(34:16):
it Soul Unlimited.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I'm going to put it on ABC. And it was.
You can see clips of it on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It didn't last long, but it was a literal ripoff
of Soul Train. And you might say Soul Train was
a ripoff of American Bandstand, fair enough, but for him
to go after the African American market like that, I
don't think was very cool.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
No, it isn't very cool. I could see Dick Clark
being a little blind to the larger implications of it.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And you know, I don't know if if he was
involved in it's canceling or not, but you know, some
black leaders did get it canceled. They started a campaign
to say, like, no, just leave this one alone. I
don't know if how easily Clark went along with her
or not. I like to think he was like, oh, okay,
I see the era of my ways now and dropped it.
But yeah, only a few episodes came out either way,
(35:08):
SoulTrain was left to like stand on its own. You
know yeah, which and I think rightfully so too.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, yeah, there were other performers. Later on they would
have white performers. David Bowie very famously was on there.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh no, did you watch that?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
He did did ah, it was awful, did a pretty
bad lip sync job, which Cornelius gave him kind of
teased him about. And then Elton John who was who
was always had a pretty big following in the African
American community.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I know that, did you?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah? Yeah, he wrote. He wrote about it in his
autobiography that I read last year.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I think it started when Aretha Franklin covered burned Down
the Mission. If I'm not mistaken, Okay, is that the
one she recorded. I think that's the way it went down.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I've never heard of that song before.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
What is wrong with you? You've never heard burn Down the Mission?
Speaker 4 (35:58):
I don't think so. I'm not the biggest Elton John fan.
I mean, I'm fine with him, but I really don't
like a lot of his seventies stuff, like a lot.
I really don't like it. Wow, But I like his
any stuff, like the whole I'm still standing thing.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Okay, it's good.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
It was burned Down the Mission before that.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, Yeah, that was that was a nice My follow.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Up question is what what what problem did he have
with the mission? He didn't write it, Okay, Bernie Toppin
wrote all his lyrics. Oh I see now I am
a Bernie Toppin fan.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
You're a national treasure.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
So Elton John was on a couple of times, and
it's pretty sweet if you look at the one. I'm
not sure if it was the Philadelphia Freedom one or I.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Hate that song or the other one.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
It's such a good song.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
But he they you know, he takes questions and you
can tell he's kind of shy and a little nervous,
and he takes some questions from the from the people,
from the dancers and stuff, which was kind of cool.
But it's just very sweet to see how nervous he was.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, because he's known for being a humble, humble spirit,
is he No have you ever seen that the documentary
they made or he self made or no, his partner made.
His partner was the only one he would let, you know,
fallow him around with the camera, which is pretty understandable.
But he came out in the last like I don't know,
(37:21):
decade or less.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, the tantrums and tierras.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I think, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great, man,
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, he's good. I like that Rocketman movie a lot too.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
I have not seen that. I saw it. I saw
it over someone else's shoulders on a plane.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
You wouldn't like it, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I know, it didn't look like anything I would like.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
No, if you don't like Elton John, you wouldn't like
the movie about Elton John.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
No.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And again, sir Elton, I have no problem with you personally.
It's just that that period through seventies, the seventies, like
Crocodile Rock, the one about like Philadelphia Freedom.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You know, all those bad seventies albums Madman Across the
Water and Captain Fantastic and by yelbrick Row, those are
all terrible.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Exactly. I feel understood.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Check thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So the eighties come along and nineteen eighty three Don
Cornelius has brain surgery, takes a little time off, he
comes back. SoulTrain has changed their look a little bit
to try and fit with kind of what's going on
at the time, with like Whitney Houston and people like that.
And then hip hop and rap come along and apparently
(38:28):
Don Cornelius is not a big fan.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Uh yeah, I think I read I can't remember. I
read a really great article in Dazed about it, or
there's another pretty good one that was a review of
the recent TV biopic about him and SoulTrain on The Guardian,
and it basically explained it like that Don Cornelius was
like a mid century integration minded black businessman and that
(38:57):
he and his ilk and generation they had been working toward, like,
you know, getting a piece of the pie that didn't
necessarily it wasn't the white pie. It was the pie
that white people controlled. And if you were you know,
if you if you made your way to get a
piece of this that like you could you could be
black and still enjoy the good life. And that hip
(39:19):
hop reminded him of everything that he and his generation
had kind of tried to work beyond and pasted and
to integrate, and that to him it was a step backwards.
So he wasn't vibing on it at all. My own
personal take is that he was a smooth customer and
he appreciated smoothness, and hip hop, especially eighties hip hop,
(39:43):
was the opposite of smooth, and so he was not
vibing on it at all, and he even referred to
himself as an old guy sometimes when he was interviewing
you know, some of the hip hop artists who came
on Soul Train in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, I watched one of the Public Enemy clips and
it was weird. Afterward he like he basically ignores Chuck
D and like talks only to Flavor Flave.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
And then finally turns to Chuck It was like, and now,
Chuck D.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
He said, you must feel so blessed to have have
someone as talented as Flavor as your partner. What really,
it was really weird, and Chuck D was like, yeah,
you know, he's quite a character, as you can see. Yeah,
I just I don't know. It really came off as
like Don Cornelius doesn't understand this. I'm not dissing Flave,
(40:33):
but like Chuck D was like the he was the
leader of that band, you know.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Yeah, he was the brains behind the outfit for sure.
And I mean like, yeah, Flavor Flaves just like he's
he's like fills in the kind of hardness of Chuck D. Yeah,
I don't Yeah, if you think Public Enemy, it's definitely
Flavor Flavor and Chuck D. But it's Chuck D.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
And then Flavor Flave.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, it was definitely a strange interview because I thought,
finally he's going to talk to Chuck D. And he's like,
you must feel so good about having this guy as
your partner.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
Which one was that after? Because they were on at
least twice on the regular show by my count, and
then once on the Soul Train Awards at least you
don't remember. So it's not like he wasn't smart enough
to know that they were big and should be on anyway,
whether he liked him or not. But they did they
can't trust it in nineteen ninety one, and they did
Rubble without a Pause in nineteen eighty seven, and I
(41:29):
could not find the interview segment. I just saw, like
the performance, No, both like really great.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Well, it was very sweet and actually it would have
had to been the nineties one because afterward Flavor Flave
asked for a a moment of silence for the passing
of Miles Davis and Red Fox.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And they take a moment of silence.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
That's awesome, h it was cool. So and that's actually
just in case we haven't gotten this across enough yet
Soul Train again, was it never got away from like
it's black roots, like it never sold out or anything
like that. Like it was, like, that makes perfect sense
that they would include that part. They wouldn't just edit
that out in the episode that they published. Yeah, that
(42:16):
was just part of it. Even as late as the
early nineties.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, in the early nineties is when Don Cornelius finally
had to step down. May tenth, nineteen ninety three was
his final episode. He passed it on to the younger generation.
It went all the way to two thousand and six
and became the longest running syndicated show in TV history.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Yeah, thirty five seasons amazing and those younger that younger
generation that he handed the reins over to. Some of
the temporary hosts included Jamie Fox got his start, Tyra
Banks and Shamar Moore from Criminal Minds. He was a
long time stand in host. Really, Yeah, he's big time manh.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I don't know who that is.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I don't Watchdal Minds either, but you've seen enough like
ads for Criminal Minds that you would recognize. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Very Sadly, Don Cornelius took his own life. He was
suffering from Alzheimer's and apparently he was having a lot
of seizures and just in a pretty bad way physically,
and his son said that that was the reason why he.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Took his own life.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Yeah, well, Puss. He'd also sold the rights i think
to Soul Train too, and it seems like things kind
of started to go downhill for him around then, I
think in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But yeah, apparently it was a really big surprise to
everybody who knew him that he died by suicide, that
that was not the perceived outcome for him, I think. Yeah,
but his legacy lives on. Like you said, I mean,
the thirty five seasons the longest running syndicated television show
of all time. In and of itself, it's an incredible achievement,
(43:56):
but also to be like a cornerstone of like introducing
black culture as black culture to the larger culture as
a whole in white culture huge is Yeah. I mean,
that's about as big an accomplishment as you can make.
It's like Jesse Jackson said, he was as important as
any civil rights leader.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yep, you know.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
So that's Don Cornelius and Soul Train. That's how ed
if you want to know more about that. You don't
need to know anything else. Just start go watching clips
of Soul Train and you will be a happier person
than you were before you started.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, get ready for some sick robot action.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
It's so great. And rerun too. You can't forget about
rerun fred Berry.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
No, that's sweet.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Well, since we talked about fred Berry, that means everybody.
Obviously it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
This is about Iron Maiden.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Hey, guys, listen to your short stuff on six sixty
six and loved it more so for Josh's thoughts on
Iron Maiden, hardest working band of business seeing them twice.
I've been a Maiden fan for about fifteen years, and
I got to say Josh was right on the money
when he said Power Slave was the album to listen
to if you've never really given them a chance. So chuck,
whip out that old bean bag, roll up a fatty,
(45:15):
crack open a cold one, and crank up some Maiden.
You'll be glad you did. Also, just want to say
thank you both for the awesome work you do. I'm spewing,
which must be Australian for angry, he says, I'm spewing
because I couldn't get to your show when you came
to Perth.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
I think, so, yeah, yeah, you missed a good show
that I was thinking about how cool that town was
the other day.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, Perth was cool.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Your discussion and delivery of interesting, exciting topics week after
week transmute information and understanding into very enjoyable entertainment into
my ear holes, bringing much joy not just to my
commute but.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
To my work life.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Lots of love from Mandura, Western Australia, and that is
from Tie Ty.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
I like this person.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
First of all, Tie says that I'm right, which I love. Yeah,
likes Iron Maiden, loves Iron Maiden. You could say, and
it is upset that they missed our show.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
We'll be back.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Sure we will be Hey, you know, we're like number
one in Australia as far as podcasts go.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Right now, I heard that. Man, they're practically begging for
us to come back.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
We'll come back and we'll definitely go to Perth again.
So don't worry, Ty, we'll be there. Just keep an
ear up, keep your ear holes out.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
If you want to be cool like Tye and get
in touch with us, you can do that, You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
You Know Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 4 (46:46):
You listen to your favorite shows.
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