The Soul Train Episode

Today, Chuck and Josh dive into the funky, cool world of the classic TV show, Sooooooooul Train.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. 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

(00:23):
hear yours. I know you can do it. The Soul Train,
it's so much higher than that. That was good though,
but you you, you dropped it down into your range
and it still was. You made it your own, I think,
is what I'm trying to say. And I like it,
which is old white guy version. So you're not old,
You're just middle aged now, okay, sure, uh well let

(00:45):
me ask you this, Chuck. Were you aware of Soul
Train while it was on? Oh? Yeah, okay, then your
super rowl. I love Soul Train. 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. Yeah,
I mean I've watched Solid Gold to be sure. Uh
an American bandstand. But I was just a uh a

(01:09):
rapid 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.
We're where I could because you know, often I couldn't
stay up to watch um late night te uh talk

(01:32):
shows where you see performances like this is where I
got to see live music before I could start go
seeing live music. 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 and
seeing like a somebody like Marvin Gay or Stevie Wonder
perform like that was that was a big deal, especially

(01:53):
like you're saying, if you're too young and fell asleep
too early to go to a proper show. Um, but
even more than that, and like that was a huge,
huge mark that Soul Train left was was just presenting that.
But that had been done before. There was American band
stay and there are all sorts of like kind of
dance party TV shows. UM. So it didn't exactly pioneer
in that sense. But what it did pioneer and is

(02:16):
that the people that was presenting African Americans teenagers um,
who were hip and their own people and part of
black culture and presenting it in a way that like
was an apologetic that wasn't um critical, that didn't didn't
portray it in some sort of negative light or in

(02:37):
a way that you know, I was trying to get
white people to understand it. Just presenting it as it
was and celebrating it. That's where Soul Train like really
broke through. And it's very very difficult to overstate how
revolutionary and groundbreaking Soul Train was, especially for how simple
the show format was. Basically, I mean, like you said,

(03:00):
bandstand had been around since nineteen two and this uh
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, UM, a host interviewing and talking
to these people, uh, these musicians afterward briefly, and then
beyond that just awesome music spinning on the turntable and

(03:27):
amazing dancing, amazing outfits, amazing hairstyles, and just a celebration
of black culture. It was really really cool, and um,
the point is made in in this uh in this
article that they put together for us, but um, it
was it was definitely um by black people and four

(03:47):
black people, but it was an introduction to black culture
to white kids like me, a little eight year old
Chuck in Stone Mountain, Georgia sitting around watching the Soul
Train dance line. Yeah, I can't imagine it was mind blowing, Chuck, Like, um,
I think it wasn't just you know, it wasn't like
you were necessarily sheltered where you were growing up. Whether

(04:07):
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
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,

(04:30):
agitated light um or he was a sidekick on on
TV or a servant or in some kind of goofy
comedy or something like that. Like the un soul Training
into that, 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,

(04:50):
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 off.
And if you like it awesome if you don't get lost. Yeah,
And Dave um 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, uh what you saw and on soul Train,

(05:13):
you you wanted to dance like that, you wanted to
wear those clothes. If someone debuted of sweet move, then
you saw on Saturday morning, you would uh practice that
move in your living room and then debut it at
your club that night. And there were like some pretty
sweet moves that were debuted on Unsoul Trained. The Sweetest

(05:34):
We did an entire episode on the Moonwalk, if you
remember correctly, and that was originally called the Backslide that
was created on Soul Train. The Robot the rerun. Dam it, man,
there's so much sweet robot ing. Yes, yeah, and that's
where he came from. Apparently no one did the robot
And like these were like basically club kids who who
now had a place to do their club stuff on

(05:57):
TV and then go out to the club's later that
night and do some more and like come up with
more stuff and they come bring it to Soul Train
again and then kids would watch that kids, 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. Yeah. Let's read a
couple of these quotes that kind of encapsulate how important

(06:20):
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, as a student at Princeton,
I would see it wherever I was. It made available
to the world one of the great traditions in American history,
which is a history of soul music. Soul music at
its best, taught America, especially young Americans, about color, how

(06:43):
to be free, and how to love in a deeper
and better way. Uh. 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 an opportunity
to express themselves. It showed us that we two have

(07:05):
a place on TV. Yeah, and I can't imagine what
commons babysitter, how excited she must have been to get
to be on Soul Train, like that must have been
the biggest thing possible, Like they said it was the
hippest 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

(07:28):
when when Soul Train came along, you said Bandstand had
been on since nineteen fifty two, almost two decades by
this time. Um Soul Train comes along, And there was
a TV critic in nineteen seventy three who wrote, I
believe for the New York Times that comparing Um Soul
Train to the old American Bandstand is like comparing Champagne
to seltzer Burns. That had to that had to hurt

(07:50):
Dick Clark. Oh, he did fun well as far as
I could tell. Everything I've ever heard about him. He
was literate, so we 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.
So we can't talk about Soul Train without talking about
Don Cornelius. Uh. Don Cornelius was the host and creator

(08:11):
of Soul Train 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 a comment thing.
They usually put him in league with Desi ar Nez,
who owned I Love Lucy, and Mike Douglas who owned
the Mike Douglas Show. Most of even like the creators

(08:32):
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 own some other
piece of it. This was a hundred percent Don Cornelius's
jam And there's a legend um that kind of goes
along with that that James Brown came on very early

(08:54):
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 um, and Don 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 asked the

(09:14):
same question. Don Cornelius answers in 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, a percent mine.
Nobody else owns it. It's totally my show. And I
don't think anybody else could have done it like Don
Cornelius did. He was perfect for Soul Train, and I

(09:35):
think the reason why is because it came from him,
like it was his creation and his baby. Should we
take a break, I'm a little worked up, so yeah
maybe so all right, Uh, you're gonna work on your
rerun dance. We're gonna take a little break and we'll
go back and uh talk about young Don Cornelius right
after this. I want to learn about how to take

(09:55):
a perfect but about kiscon murders that they kind of
all runs on the plane every day. We should know
warred up Jerry. Alright, So Young Don was born in

(10:29):
Chicago on the South Side, in the neighborhood of Bronzeville,
known as the Black Metropolis. He was the son of
a postal worker and it was a marine. He joined
the Marines after high school. Uh fought in South Korea.
After that, comes home to Chicago, tells cars for a
little while, sells insurance for a little while and then says,

(10:49):
I want to be a cop. I want to be
a popo. Yep, And he was a popo 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 he's married with with two kids at home, two
sons and one day. Um, there's a story and urban legend,
as far as I know, is true. Let me smell it. Well,
then it's not an urban legend. It's just a story.

(11:12):
It could be a true urban legend. We're gonna come
up with an entirely different category right now, Chuck. So
Don Cornelius, Officer Cornelius pulls the guy over, and that
guy happened to be the news director, Roy Wood for
a local UM a M radio station, w v O N.
And as Roy Wood is getting this ticket written up
by Officer Cornelius, he's like, hey man, your voice is astounding,

(11:36):
because if you've never heard Don Cornelius's voice, press pause
right now and go on to YouTube. Just listen to
some soul train intros from him. He was an amazingly
hip cat with one of the best voices of all time.
Ry white. He also pulled over the guy and said
license and registration. Baby, Yeah, so that helped. Yeah, do

(11:56):
it as Sammy Davis Jr. Pulling him over. Now, hey bad,
give me your license and registration. That was that was
so good? So um, 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

(12:17):
only does he give it some thought, it's not clear
whether he actually gave Roy Wood the ticket or not. Um,
but he actually quits being a cop, goes and takes
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 w v WIN and gets hired

(12:40):
after a three month course because his voice was that
great and because his persona was that hip too. So yes,
Don Cornelius, Uh, the voice of gold the Golden Tonsils?
Is that what they called the velvet fog? That was melt?
Or may? Okay? I always get this too confused and

(13:01):
nol on movie Crush. His nickname is Smokey vellet. Oh
that's nice. I'm not sure where that came from. Maybe
I made it up. Smokey gullet, smokey velfit. I was
smokey vell smokey gullet. That's really gross. So uh. He
becomes a DJ at the radio station, like you said,
and then as hired as a reporter, a news reporter

(13:21):
on TV for w c i U t V. He
covered sports, he covered covered civil rights stuff. He had
a show for the news program called a Black's View
of the News, which is, you know something you could
only get away with in the nineteen sixties, I think
early seventies. Plant. Oh, yeah, you're right, it would have

(13:42):
been the sixties. Sorry, yeah, and he u. He interviewed
Jesse Jackson, he interviewed Martin Luther King. Uh. 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. Yeah,

(14:03):
so he's like a TV broadcaster by day, radio radio
DJ and sock hop 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,
I'm happy doing news and civil rights reporting and I'm

(14:25):
part of you know, this group called the Good Guys,
these black DJs out of Chicago that were kind of
known as the arbiters of cool. But um, he he
said that he had He later said he had this
burning desire to um to see black people depicted on
television in a positive light. And he decided that the
best way to do that was to kind of take

(14:46):
these parties, these sock hops and um just kind of
cool Chicago house parties that he was djaying, 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 weren't, how much like how how what
a celebration of like black culture they were just in
and of themselves, that that could be a TV show

(15:07):
by itself, And that was the original soul train. That's
right and very key. He went to his TV station
w c i U and said, I want to shoot
a pilot for this thing, baby, and they said, Uh, sure,
but we're not gonna be front the money, and he said,
I'll pay for it. Little did he know what a
fortuitous move that was, because I think had they funded it,

(15:29):
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. Uh, And he said, not because it was wonderful,
but because it was theirs. It belonged to the black people.
A year later, he moves to l a and said,

(15:50):
I'm gonna 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 uh station
in whatever city. Yeah. I don't know what we would
have talked about that on either, but um I would.

(16:13):
I think we should do an entire episode on TV syndication.
I'll bet it was world changing. So um when he
moved to Los Angeles, that Black and White Soul Train
it used to be on every weekday. They continued that,
so it was like it was two things. It was
a full color, nationally syndicated television show out of l A.

(16:35):
But it was also a black and white local weekly
um 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 l A shoot four episodes two
on Saturday to on Sunday, and then fly back in

(16:57):
time to be there for the afternoon black and white
Monday episode of the Chicago local Soul Train Amazing, Working
Hard was working Hard, Yeah, it's right. So uh. 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 was kind of the first show of its kind. Um.

(17:20):
But that did open the door for Johnson Products, another
black owned Chicago business from husband and wife team George
and Joanne Johnson. Uh that they started nineteen fifty four,
and these commercials are so great too. They sold beauty
and hair care products to African Americans, so Afro Sheen
and Ultra Sheen were the two big ones and the

(17:41):
two big commercials you see, and they became as much
as part of the fabric of the show almost as
like the Soul Train line or the performers or anything else.
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

(18:03):
like with Afro Sheen and Ultra Sheen was radical and
that it's saying like just let your hair grow naturally.
These are 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 Soul Train,
which is a celebration of black culture. Um for itself,

(18:24):
the the um Johnson family of products were promoting black
culture and it's in like natural state too, So it
was like just perfect to go hand in hand. I
think they kind of worked with each other, but also
we're important independent of one another, but when you put
them together, it was like greater than some of its
parts even. Yeah, and it was um it was a

(18:45):
big deal culturally. Uh. 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.
That's pretty great. Uh. And like I said, I was
a little white kid watching it. There's this lady, Madeline Weeks,
who was a fashion editor at g Q. She was

(19:06):
a little white girl in Virginia, and she said, I
watched Soul Train religiously every week. I loved it from
beginning to end. Even the Afrochine and ultrachine ads were heaven.
I had the funkiest, most stylish, sexiest dancers. Everybody looked
like they were having the best time. 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. Does something else, it's

(19:30):
pretty great. Well, you want to take a break and
then get back into what it was like to watch
Soul Train and be on it. You know. I was
a guest. Yes, I can't wait. We're gonna debut that
clip live, all right, let's do it. I want to
learn about a terris ortic college actol how to take
a perfect moment, all about fractal An kiscon that the
hun the Lizzie Border murders, that they kind of all
runs on the plane, everything that we should know. Wear

(19:57):
it up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck, So we're back. There was

(20:17):
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 UHF station, an independent station,
and um, have you ever seen that that movie UHF
with weird al Nope, it's so good, but it actually
is not too far off from w c i U.

(20:37):
They would play Lithuanian and Polish language talk shows Amos
and Andy, um, bullfights from Mexico like these. 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 I read

(21:00):
in the Chicago Reader this kind of oral history of
the local version of Soul Train. The head cameraman at
w c i U had strabusmus and couldn't use the
viewfinder in the camera. It was like that kind of
rag tag group that just kind of got it done somehow.
I just love that little tidbit. That's pretty cool. Alright.
So if you watch Soul Train, the first thing that

(21:22):
you would see when the show starts is that classic
um animated intro of that freight train rolling into the city.
So cool, so iconic. Then you see Don Cornelius, always
dressed to the nines, the coolest cat maybe to ever
be on television. Would make Billy d weep with jealousy.

(21:43):
He was because he was a DJ previously he was.
He just had that DJ lingo down, you know. Uh,
day put in one of the things. It's going to
be a stone gas honey, like all that seventies um
sort of shaft like talk was is just who Don
Cornelius was. Let me, let me try my hand at it.

(22:03):
You ready, Okay, it's gonna be a stone gas honey. Okay,
that sounded like a CB trucker from the seventies. Somehow,
it's gonna be a stone gas honey. I don't know
what my problem is. Hey, not bad, don't MIHI to
meet Chuck Josh Cornelius. Uh, you had the ear musical guests,

(22:26):
like we said, just like American band stand. Um, I
think sometimes they lip lip SYNCD and sometimes they really sang.
Early on they lip synced across the board. Yeah, it
kind of depends on who the artist is too, Um,
Patti LaBelle, Barry White, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown,
Al Green, like just a murderers row of rhythm and

(22:48):
blues and soul performers. I think Gladys Knight and the
Pips was on the first syndicated episode. 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, uh, he was he was always
very um deferential, saying, you know, if it weren't for Gladys,

(23:12):
none of this would be here right now. That's nice. Yeah,
it was pretty cool. Her. Have you ever eaten at
Gladys Knight's House of Chicken and Waffles? What do you think?
I'm thinking you probably have multiple times, but we've never
discussed it. Yeah. I mean when I lived in l A,
I was a regular at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. But um, yeah,
Gladys Knight does it right as well, Yes she does.
Have you ever had the smothered chicken there? I don't

(23:34):
think so. Is it like gravy or something? Yes? And
it is even better than the chicken and waffles. Yes.
I can't not get the chicken and waffles. So get both, Okay,
just get both. There's no reason to hold back at
Gladys Knight's house of chicken and waffles and eat a
little bit of both and take the rest of them sure,
or eat it all? Yes, um so Soul Train. Of course,

(23:58):
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 that had dancers.
They would go find like the flies dancers in the clubs,
invite them to be on the show, and everyone else

(24:21):
had to audition, Like thousands of people would line up
an audition with their dance moves to be a Soul
trained dancer. Yeah and um like again, like commons babysitter
was saying, like that was a big deal to be picked,
and some were recruited, like you're saying, from the clubs um,
and those those particular dancers were usually so good that

(24:43):
they would rise to like national prominence, like the camera
just couldn't avoid them. They also were no slouches that
learning how to play to the camera to um when
the camera was on them or anywhere near them. Um.
But one of the ways that everybody shine to whether
you've got a lot of camera time or not, was
in the the the Soul Train Line, which became a
really regular feature of each episode where everybody just kind

(25:06):
of be clapping and standing on two sides, and then
a couple would come down, usually a couple, sometimes it
was solo would come down and do some crazy dance moves,
um and really get a chance to like show off
and and kind of capture the attention of the of
the viewing audience. Yeah, if you've never gone on YouTube
and looked at Soul Train Line videos, um, first of all,

(25:29):
I'm surprised that you 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. It's amazing and what's
cool about it too, is you can put it to
any kind of super cool music and it sounds really great.

(25:50):
It looks really great. What you like and mute it
and put on different music. No, no, but other people
have like put their own tracks or other people's tracks.
Video of soul Train. It works really well. Interesting. Yeah,
I like the real music. Sure, real music isn't bad either.
The jungle boogie one is really good. In particular, that
is a good one. So they filmed four episodes in

(26:13):
a weekend. Um. Apparently the dancers were worked pretty hard,
and Cornelius was pretty demanding of them. You couldn't choot, gum,
you couldn't curse. His mantra was beyond time, be tactful,
be creative, be funky, and be yourself. Yeah, they were
unpaid too, typically, Um, I guess you would be paid

(26:35):
if you were dancing to a performer. Um, but if
you were part of the segments that that it was
just them playing music and people were dancing, you were unpaid. Um.
I think they'd feed you because again, you're doing two
episodes over two days, so for total, like you were saying, um,

(26:56):
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,
two episodes back to back, twice over a weekend. I

(27:17):
bet it was fun too, though I'm sure it was
fun too. I was thinking the impression that it was
a little competitive. Although there's a guy who um frequently
gets overshadowed by Don Cornelius, but was known as his
right hand man. His name was Clinton Ghent, and he
was one of the uh the kind of co creators
of soul Train, or he was there from the beginning

(27:38):
in Chicago, and he had a real eye for finding
those dancers in the clubs. He was one of the
ones who would go scout dancers, um 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 jell together like a family. So that when

(27:59):
you go back and watch Soul Train episodes or when
you were watching it when they were coming on the
first time, you you you weren't like sitting there seeing
like dancers like kind of sniping one another, backbiting or
pushing each other out the way. It did kind of
have this really family vibe every episode, And apparently that
was the work of Clinton Gent guy who who just

(28:20):
really knew how to put people together. Yeah, that g
Q uh editor really nailed it. Like it It just
looked like every it looked like a party you wanted
to be at, like everyone was having a good time. Yeah,
for sure. So some of the um, some of these
dancers went on to be famous. Um, we're kind of
discovered there. Jody Whatley, the singer, She started out as

(28:40):
a teenager on Soul Train, and Don Cornelius was like,
you're super talented. I'm a businessman. Um, I'm gonna pair
you with this other guy, Jeffrey Daniel, and you guys
should record music together. And that little group went on
to be Shalimar of course. Uh in nineteen seventy seven
they got together and then after Shalimar, Jody Watley went

(29:02):
on to become Jody Watley. That's right. Ah, you mentioned
rerun from What's Happening, Um, Nick Cannon Carmen Electra, which
I didn't know that she started out there that that
kind of surprised me. I didn't either. Her real name
is Tera Lee Patrick. Did you know that. I don't
know if I did or not. I know it wasn't
Carmen Electra. Yeah, it's not that, although she looks way

(29:26):
more like a Carmen Electra than a Terry Lee Patrick. Yeah, agreed,
didn't look at all Irish or Southern. Rosie Perez was
maybe one of the biggest names to come out of
a Soul Train. This was in the eighties, because you know,
you think about the salad days of Soul Train and
you'd probably think of the seventies, but the eighties were

(29:46):
pretty big and it went all the way to two
thousand six. But um, in the eighties is when the
hip hop influence came on, and Rosie Perez brought that
that Brooklyn, New York City hip hop flavor. And if
you go back and watch some of her stuff fun
Soul Train, it's like the Dancing School. It's much it's
much different than that sort of seventies groove that was.

(30:07):
It was that sort of New York City hip hop style. Yeah,
but she does it like the beginning of um, what
does it, uh, do the right thing? Yeah, that's her
dancing at the beginning of her right. Yeah. That was
like straight up soul train. That's what she did on
soul Train um, which is very much not like what
they were doing in l A too. So she kind
of rose to prominence as a soul train dancer very quickly,

(30:30):
and Don Cornelius apparently was like, hey, I want to
lock you into a contract, and Rosie Perez, being smart, streetwise,
Rosie Perez said that's great, I'll show it 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

(30:51):
into um or for any reason really um And to
get him all of her she threw um a piece
of the fried chicken she was eating at the time,
right at his head and hit him in the face.
That's how the story goes. That's how Rosie Perez tells
it for sure. Yeah, and you know we should mention
too that that is not cool at all. And while
we're praising Don Cornelius for his talents as a host,

(31:13):
he uh he did later in life when he was
a bit older. Um was what was he arrested or
was he just charged? I think he was charged with
um domestic violence against his Russian Ukrainian wife. Yes, he
was at least charged. Um. I don't know if he
was convicted, but there was a Yeah, he got into

(31:36):
an entailment because of that, at least accusation that he
had um abused her and then also apparently intimidated a
witness into changing their story. He was charged with that
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 um,

(32:00):
I don't. I don't know the story behind it at all, um,
but I think it's worth pointing out like Don Cornelius
was not just as straight up like nothing but a smooth,
cool cat. He was a complex human being who had
faults as well too, and flaws and all that. I
mean grabbing Rosie Perez is bad enough alone. Sure you
know what you get, You get the old chicken wing

(32:21):
to the forehead. Yeah you do. I 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 Rosie Perez. I would never mess with Rosie Perez.
And he didn't know that his signature sign off was
on Don Cornelius and as always imparting, we wish you love,
peace and soul. Yeah. There are a couple of other

(32:43):
people who kind of rose to prominence to Cheryl Song.
She was the first Asian dancer on Soul Train, and
she said she had to really kind of prove herself
that she wasn't just like the token non African American dancer, UM,
that she was actually a really good dancer, and she
did um. And then Jermaine Stewart, who you might recognize
as the singer of We Don't Have to Take Our
Clothes Off. And that's pretty cute because he came back

(33:06):
home and performed it on Soul Train in and when
Don Cornelius was introducing him, he was saying, he made
good and we're all very proud of him, and like
you mentioned the Irish Carmon Electra, who I guess stood
out because she was river dancing on Soul Train, and
everyone was like, what is that? What is that? But
then everybody wanted to do it because it was Carmon

(33:27):
Electra doing it. So Soul Train 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 gonna start my own Soul
Train and try and bury Don Cornelius all right, and

(33:49):
I'm gonna call it Soul Unlimited. M gonna put it
on ABC. And it was. You can see clips of
it on YouTube. It didn't last long, but it was
a literal rip off of Soul Train. And you might
say Soul Train was a rip off of American band
Stand fair enough, but for him to go after, uh,
the African American market like that, I don't think it

(34:10):
was very cool. No, it isn't very cool. I could
see Dick Clark being a little blind to the larger
implications of it. And you know, I don't know if
if he was involved in it's canceling or not, but
you know, some 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 Dick

(34:33):
Clark went along with it or not. I like to
think he was like, okay, I see the air of
my ways now and dropped it. But yeah, only a
few episodes came out either way. Soul Train was left
to like stand on its own, you know which? And
I think rightfully so too. Yeah yeah, uh. There were
other performers later on, they would have white performers. David
Bowie very famously was on there. Did you watch that? Did? It?

(34:56):
Was awful? Did a pretty bad lip sync job, which
Cornelius gave him, uh, kind of teased him about. Uh.
And then Elton John who was who has always had
a pretty big following in the African American community. I
don't know that, did you? Yeah? Yeah? He wrote. He
wrote about it in his autobiography that I read last year.
I think it started when um Aretha Franklin covered Burned

(35:19):
Down the Mission If I'm not mistaken, Okay, is that
the one she recorded? I think that's the way it
went down. I've never heard of that song before. What
is wrong with you? You've never heard burned Down the Mission?
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 is

(35:42):
any stuff like the whole I'm Still Standing thing? It
was burned down the mission before that? Yeah? Yeah, that
was That was my follow up question is what what
what problem did he have with the mission? He didn't
write it? Okay, Bernie taup and wrote all his lyrics.
Oh I now I am a Bernie toppin You're a

(36:06):
National treasure. Thank you. So Elton John was on a
couple of times, and um, it's pretty sweet if you
look at the one. I'm not sure if it was
the Philadelphia Freedom one or I hate that song or
the other one that's such a good song, but he
would 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

(36:28):
the dancers and stuff, which was kind of cool. But
it's just very sweet to see how nervous he was. Yeah,
because he's 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,

(36:50):
fallo him around with the camera, which is pretty understandable.
But he came out in the last like I don't know,
decade or less. Yeah, the tantrums and tiarros. I think, yes, yeah, yeah, Yeah,
it was great man. I loved it. Yeah, he's good.
I like that Rocketman movie a lot too. I have
not seen that. I saw it. I saw it over
someone else's shoulders on a plane. You wouldn't like it,
I didn't. I know. It didn't look like anything I

(37:12):
would like. No, if you don't like Elton John, you
wouldn't like the movie about Elton John. No. And again,
sir Elton, I have no problem with you personally. It's
just that that period through seventies, the seventies like Crocodile Rock, Um,
the one about like Philadelphia Freedom, Um. You know all
those bad seventies albums Madman Across the Water and Captain
Fantastic and Goodbye ell Bick Road. Those are all terrible,

(37:35):
exactly I feel understood. Check think you. Uh So, the
eighties come along and Don Cornelius has brain surgery, takes
a little time off, he comes back, Soul Train is
has changed their look a little bit to try and
fit with um kind of what's going on at the
time with like Whitney Houston and people like that. And

(37:58):
then hip hop and rap come along and apparently Don
Cornelia Cornelius was not a big fan. Uh yeah, And
I think I read I can't remember. I read a
really great article and dazed about it. Or there's another
pretty good one that was a review of the recent
TV biopic about him and Soul Train on The Guardian,

(38:19):
and it basically explained it like that Don Cornelius was
like a mid century integration minded black businessman and that
he and his ilk in generation they had been working
towards like, you know, getting a piece of the pie
that didn't necessarily it wasn't the white pie. It was

(38:41):
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 hop reminded him of everything that he and
his generation had kind of tried to work beyond and
past and integrate um and that to him it was

(39:02):
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, 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

(39:23):
was interviewing, Um, you know some of the hip hop
artists who came on Soul Train in the eighties. Yeah,
I watched one of the Public Enemy clips and um,
it was weird. Afterwards he like, he basically ignores Chuck
D and like talks only to Flavor Flavor and then
finally turns to Chuck. It was like, and now, Chuck D.

(39:46):
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.
I just I don't know. It really came off as
like Don Cornelius, it doesn't understand this I'm not dissing
flav but like Chuck D was like the he was

(40:10):
the leader of that band, you know, Yeah, he was
the brains behind the outfit for sure. And I mean, like, yeah,
Flavor Flavors just like he's he's like fills in the
kind of hardness of Chuck D. Yeah, I I don't. Yeah,
if you think public Enemy, it's definitely Flavor Flavor and
Chuck T. But it's Chuck T. Yeah, you know what

(40:31):
I mean, and then Flavor flav. Yeah. It was definitely
a strange interview because I thought, finally he's going to
talk to Chuck T. And he's like, you must feel
so good about having this guy as your partner, which
which one was that after? Because they were on at
least twice on the regular show by my account, and
then once on the Soul Train Awards at least, So
it's not like he wasn't smart enough to know that

(40:52):
they were big and should be on anyway, whether he
liked him or not. But they did. They did Can't
Trust It In and they did Bubble without a pause
in seven and I could not find the interview segment.
I just saw like the performance and we both like
really great. Well, it was very sweet and actually, um,
it would have had to be in the nineties one

(41:14):
because afterward Flavor Flav asked for a a moment of
silence for the passing of Miles Davison Red Fox, and
they took a moment of silence. That's awesome. So um
and that's actually just um, in case we haven't gotten
this across enough yet, Soul Train again, was it never

(41:36):
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 were published. Um, that was just part of it.
Even as they're as late as the early nineties. Yeah,
and the early nineties is when done Cornelius finally had
to step down. Was his final episode Old. He passed

(42:00):
it on to the younger generation. It went all the
way to two thousand six and became the longest running
syndicated show in TV history. Yeah, thirty five season amazing
and it's that those younger that younger generation that he
handed the reins over to. Some of the temporary hosts
included Jamie Fox got his start, Tira Banks and Shamar

(42:24):
More from Criminal Minds. He was a long time stand
in host. Yeah, he's a big time now. I don't
know who that is. Um. I I don't watch Criminal
Minds either, but you've seen enough like ads for Criminal
Minds that you would recognize. I'm sure very sadly done.
Cornelius took his own life. He was suffering from Alzheimer's
and apparently was having a lot of seizures and just

(42:47):
in a pretty bad way, um physically, and his son
said that that was that was the reason why he
took his own life. Yeah. Well Pussy had also sold
the rights I think too Soul two, and it seems
like things kind of started to go downhill for him
around then, I think in two thousand eight. Um. But yeah,

(43:08):
apparently it was a really big surprise to everybody who
knew him that he um, he died by suicide, that
that was not the perceived outcome for him, I think, Um,
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,

(43:30):
but also to be like a cornerstone of like introducing
black culture as black culture to the larger culture as
a whole and white culture is yeah. I mean that's
that's about as big an accomplishment as as you can make.
It's like Jesse Jackson said he was as important as
any civil rights leader, you know. So that's Don Cornelius

(43:52):
and so trained. That's if you want to know more
about 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. Get
ready for some sick robot action. It's so great. And

(44:12):
rerun too. You can't forget about re run fred Berry. No,
that's sweet. Um, well, since we talked about fred Berry,
that means everybody obviously it's time for a listener mail. Uh,
this is about Iron Maiden. Hey, guys, listen to your
short stuff on six six six and loved it more
so for Josh's thoughts on Iron Maiden, hardest working band

(44:32):
in business seeing them twice. I've been a Maiden fan
for about fifteen years, and I gotta 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, crack open a cold one, and
crank up some Maiden. You'll be glad you did. Also,

(44:54):
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. I think so, Yeah, yeah,
you missed a good show. That was I was thinking
about how cool that town was the other day. Yeah,
Perth was school. Your discussion and delivery of interesting, exciting

(45:15):
topics week after week, transmute information and understanding into very
enjoyable entertainment into my ear holes, bringing much joy not
just in my commute but to my work life. Lots
of love from Mandura, Western Australia. And that is from
thy Ty. I like this person. Yeah. First of all,
Ty says that I'm right, which I love. Like's Iron

(45:37):
Maiden loves Iron Maiden, you could say, and as upset
that we that that they missed our show, we'll be back.
Sure we will be Hey, you know where like number
one in Australia as far as podcast go. Right now,
I heard that. Man, They're they're practically begging for us
to come back. Well, we'll come back and we'll definitely
go to Perth again. So don't worry, ty, We'll we'll
be there. Just keep any or out, keep your ear

(45:57):
holes out, that's right. If you I'm gonna be cool
like tie and get in touch with us, um, you
can do that. You can send us an email to
Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should
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For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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(46:20):
favorite shows. H