Selects: The Soul Train Episode

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the Seoul Train episode where we take a fun look back at the great, great TV show that was...SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL Train!

“Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I-Hart Radio.”

Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there, and this is Stuff You Should Know, my bad, let's hear yours, I know you can do it. The SOOOOOOOOOOOOL train, it's so much higher than that. That was good though, but you dropped it down into your range, and it still was...you made

it your own. I think it's 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. Let me ask you this, Chuck, were you aware of Seoul Train while it was on? Oh, yeah, okay, then you're super old.

I'd love Seoul Train. Sure, so I was a solid gold man myself, but I can get on some Seoul Train for sure, especially like vintage stuff these days. Yeah, I mean, I've watched solid gold to be sure an American band stand, but I was just 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, because shows like "Soul Train" were where I could, because often I couldn't stay up to watch late-night teet talk shows where you see performances. This is where I got to see live music before I could start to go sing live music. Right, oh yeah, that was a huge draw of it, for sure.

The idea of just being able to tune in on Saturday at 11 AM, depending on where you were, and seeing like a, somebody like Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder perform, that was a big deal, especially like you were saying if you were too young and fell asleep too early to go to a proper show, that's right. But even more than that, and like that was a huge, huge mark that Seoul Train left was just

presenting that. But that had been done before. There was American bands stand, there were 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 people

and part of black culture and presenting it in a way that like was an apologetic, that

that was trying to get white people to understand it, just presenting it as it was and celebrating it, that's where Seoul Train really broke through, and it's very, very difficult to overstate

how revolutionary and groundbreaking Seoul Train was, especially for how simple this show

format was basically. Yeah, I mean, like you said, bandstand had been around since 1952, and this, you know, kind of was known as the black American bandstand, and it followed that format. It was, you know, people, alive music performance, a host interviewing and talking to these people, these musicians afterward briefly, and then beyond that, just awesome music

spinning on the turn table and amazing dancing, amazing outfits, amazing hair styles, and just a celebration of black culture. It was really, really cool, and the point is made in this article that they put together for us, but it was, it was definitely, by black people and four black people, but it was an introduction to black culture to white kids like me, little eight year old Chuck and

Stone Mountain Georgia sitting around watching the Seoul Train dance line.

“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 was no place for you to be exposed to this prior to sole train. 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, agitated light, or he was a sidekick on TV, or a

servant, or in some kind of goofy comedy or something like that, like, the insult train into that. There was no, there was no subscribing to all of the preconceived notions that there had 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 going to put it on TV and show it off, and if you like it, awesome, if you don't, get lost." Yeah.

And Dave, I thought it was kind of a student that he said it was kind of like a lifestyle brand before that was such a thing, because these people were influenceers, what you saw on, on sole train, you, you wanted to dance like that, you wanted to wear those clothes. If someone debuted of sweet and move, then you saw on Saturday morning, you would practice

that move in your living room and then debut at your club that night. And there were, like, some pretty sweet moves that were debuted on, on sole train, the sweetest.

“We did an entire episode on the moonwalk, if you remember correctly, and that was originally”

called the backslide. That was created on sole train, the robot, the rerunding it, and there's so much sweet robotting going on. Yes. Yeah.

And that's where it came from. Apparently, no one did the robot. 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 come up with more stuff and they come, bring it to sole train again, and then kids would watch that.

Kids, college kids, adults would watch us 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 of a show this was.

“One is from philosopher, activist, and Harvard professor, Cornell West.”

He said, I never missed it Saturday morning as a graduate at the 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 sole music, sole music, and it's 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 sole train was like a dream come true for her because sole 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 too have a place on TV. Yeah, and I can't imagine what commons babysitter, how excited she must have been to get

to be on sole train. Oh, yeah. Like, that must have been the biggest thing possible, like they said it was the hippostrip 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 sole train came

along, you said bandstand had been on since 1952, almost two decades by this time, sole

that comparing sole train to the old American bandstand is like comparing champagne to

seltzer. Berns. That had to hurt Dick Clark. Oh, he did fine.

“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 had heard his feelings, there's no way it didn't. So we can't talk about sole train without talking about Don Cornelius. No.

Don Cornelius was the host and creator of sole 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 is not a common thing. They usually put him in league with Desi Artnes, who owned I love Lucy, and Mike Douglas, who owned the Mike Douglas show, must have even like the creators of a show you didn't own the show that you created, like you have some sort of deal with somebody to help produce

it, or network has exclusive rights to it, or somebody else at least owned some other piece of it. This was 100% Don Cornelius's jam, and there's a legend that kind of goes along with that James Brown came on very early on in 1972 or three. And he was like, so who's backing you on this man?

Who's backing you on this man?

In Dot. Thank you. I can't do a very good James Brown. And Don Cornelius says it's just me, James, and apparently James Brown thought that he didn't fully understand the question, so it kind of asked it again, didn't think to

rephrase it in different words, just asked the same question. Don Cornelius answers on the same way, says it's just me, James, like he got what he's saying, and he was telling him, this is mine, 100% 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 sole train.

“And I 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, you're going to work on your rerun dance. We're going to take a little break, and we'll go back and talk about young Don Cornelius

right after this. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

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I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to your problem with Yamanika on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so, young Don was born in Chicago on the south side, and 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, and then says, "I want to be a cop." Yep.

And he was a cop. Also, when there's somewhere he married, I believe it's 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. We're going to come up with an entirely different category right now, Chuck. Right. So, Don Cornelius, Officer Cornelius, pulls the guy over, and that guy happened to be the news director, Roy Wood, for a local AM radio station, WVON.

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' voice, 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. Right. He also, very white. He also pulled over the guy and said, "License and registration, baby."

Yeah. So that helped. Yeah. Do it as Sammy Davis Jr. pulling a little bit now. Hey, babe, give me your license and registration.

Oh, that was so good. So anyway, the guy is like, "You have a really great voice if you ever consider 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 a three-month broadcasting course with a wife in 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 WVO and gets hired. After a three-month course, because his voice was that great and because his persona was

that hip too. So yes, Don Cornelius, the voice of gold, the golden tonsils, is that what they called the velvet fog? That was melt or any. Oh, okay.

And I always get those two confused.

And no one movie crushes Nickname is Smokey Bellet. Oh, that's nice. I'm not sure where that came from, maybe I made it up. Smokey Gullet? Smokey Velvet.

Oh, Smokey Bellet. Smokey Gullet. That's really gross. So he becomes a DJ at the radio station, like you said, and then as hired as a reporter, a news reporter on TV for WCI, UTV, he covered sports, he covered civil rights stuff.

He had a show for the news program called a Blacks view of the news, which is something you could only get away with in the 1960s.

“I think early '70s, but yeah, you're right, it would have been the '60s, sorry.”

And he interviewed Jesse Jackson, he interviewed Martin Luther King, still DJing 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, and that's where the name came from. Yeah.

So he's like a TV broadcaster by day, radio DJing, stock hot DJ by night, comes up with the soul train idea.

And again, so this is like in his first year, after taking a three-month broadcast in

course, after pulling over a radio executive, he told me he had a good voice. And he's like, you know what, I'm happy doing news and civil rights reporting, and I'm 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.

depicted on television in a positive light.

“And he decided that the best way to do that was to kind of take these parties, these”

sock-ops, and just kind of cool Chicago house parties that he was DJing, and just put him on TV.

They're like, that would basically be enough, that if people just saw how cool these parties

were, and how fun they were, and how much, like, how, what a celebration of, like, black culture they were just in and of themselves, that that could be a TV show by itself. And that was the original soul train. That's right. And very key, he went to his TV station WCIU and said, I want to shoot a pilot for this

thing, baby, and they said, sure, but we're not going to 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, they would have had a real claim to it legally. But he put up 400 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, it belonged to the black people. Yeah. 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.

“Yeah, I don't know what we would have talked about that on either, but I think we should”

do an entire episode on TV syndication, but it was world-changing, sure. So when he moved to Los Angeles in 1971, that black and white soul train, it used to be on every weekday. They continued that. It was two things. It was a full-color nationally syndicated television show out of LA,

but it was also a black and white local weekly 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, and then fly back in time to be there for the afternoon, black and white Monday episode

of the Chicago local soul train. Amazing. Working hard. It was working hard. Yeah, it's right.

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 was kind of the first show of its kind, but they did open the door for Johnson products. Another black-owned Chicago business from husband and wife team, George and Joanne Johnson, they started in 1954, and these commercials are so great too.

They sold beauty and hair care products to African-Americans. So Afro-Scene and Ultra-Scene 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 sole train liner, the performers or anything else really. Yeah, I mean, like, I think in the large part, because they were like our stamps.com,

like one of the earliest and longest running sponsors, right? So when they came on, what they were promoting with Afro-Scene and Ultra-Scene 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 sole train, which is a celebration of black culture for itself. The Johnson family of products were promoting black culture in its 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 were 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 a big deal, culturally, 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. 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 sole train religiously every

week. From beginning to end, even the afro-achine and ultrachine ads were heaven. Had the funky as most stylish, sexiest dancers, everybody looked like they were having the best time, all the girls looked 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.

That's something else. It's pretty great. Well, you want to take a break and then get back into what it was like to watch

And be on it, you know? I was a guest.

“Yes, I can't wait, we're going to debut that clip.”

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I'm Jake Brennan, and on the disgraced land podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars

and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. At the time, Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that, your Paul McCartney, it's 1980, you're an ex-beatle, and you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons, right there alongside Yakuza gangsters and for a ridiculous

church, or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's accused of. Who is the artist, Lady Gaga, as being accused of doing the unthinkable two, after allegedly stealing her music and style to become famous?

“And what about that time, Blondie's Debbie Harry, escaped a serial killer?”

The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to the disgraced land on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm a check-you.

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“So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question, who's the problem?”

I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to your problem with Yamanika on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, so we're back. There was one little thing that I wanted to include about WCIU, the original Chicago home

of soul train, apparently it was like a rag tag UHF station, an independent station, and have you ever seen that movie UHF with Weird Al? Nope, it's so good, but it actually is not too far off from WCIU, they would play Lithuanian and Polish language talk shows, Amos and Andy, bullfights from Mexico, they just had this weird assemblage of TV show.

But then their in-house programming was made by this rag tag kind of group of inexperienced people, and I read in the Chicago reader this kind of oral history of the local version of soul train, the head camera man at WCIU had Stravus miss 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.

It just loved that little too bit. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

All right, so if you watch soul train the first thing that you would see when the show

starts is that classic animated intro of that freight train rolling into the city so cool,

to ever be on television.

We make Billy Dee weep with jealousy. He was because he was a DJ previously, he just had that DJ lingo down, you know, they put in one of the things it's going to be a stone gas, all that 70's sort of shaft like talk was just who Don Cornelius was. 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 70's, and how interesting it's going to be a stone gas, honey.

I don't know what my problem is. Hey, not bad, don't lie to me Chuck, Josh Cornelius.

“You had your musical gas, like we said, just like American band Stan, I think sometimes”

they lip synced and sometimes they really sang early on they lip synced across the board. Yeah, it kind of depends on who the artist is, too, Patty LaBelle, Barry White, Aritha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Al Green, like just a murderers row of rhythm and blues and soul performers. I think Gladys Knight in 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, 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 cool over. 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 LA, I was a regular at Roscoe's chicken and waffles, but you know, Gladys Knight does it right as well. Yes, you do. Have you ever had the smothered chicken there?

“Um, I don't think so, is it like gravy or something?”

Yes, and it is even better than the chicken and waffles. Really? Yes. I can't not get the chicken and waffles, so. Gip both.

Okay. Just gip both. There's no reason to hold back at Gladys Knight's house of chicken and waffles. Yeah, 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, that the musical performances were great in 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 like the flyers, dancers, and the clubs and invite them to be on the”

show and everyone else had to audition, like thousands of people with line up and audition with their dance moves to be a soul train dancer. Yeah, and 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, and 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 to play to the camera too, when the camera was on them or anywhere near them, but one of the ways that everybody's 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, usually a couple sometimes it was solo, would come down and do some crazy dance moves, and really get a chance to like show off 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, 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 won't be able to do nothing but watch those video clips. Yeah. 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, and looks really great. Do you like a mute it and put on different music? No, no, but other people have like put their own tracks or other people's tracks. That's a really video of soul train, and it works really well.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. I like the real music. Sure. Real music isn't bad either.

Yeah, the jungle buggy one is really good, in particular. That is a good one. So they've filmed four episodes in a weekend. Apparently the dancers were worked pretty hard, and Cornelius was pretty demanding of them, you couldn't shoot gum, you couldn't curse.

His mantra was, "Be on time, be tactful, be creative, be funky, and be yourself." Yeah. And they were unpaid too, typically.

segments where it was just them playing music and people were dancing, you were unpaid.

“And I think they'd feed you, because again, you're doing two 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, two episodes back to back twice over a weekend. I bet it was fun to, though. I'm sure it was fun too. I also get the impression that it was a little competitive, although there's a guy who frequently gets overshadowed by Don Cornelius, but was known as his right-hand man.

His name was Clinton Gent, and he was one of the kind of co-creators of soul trainer. He was there from the beginning 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, but not only of finding people who had really crazy good moves and getting them to come on to soul trainer, 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 trainer episodes 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 another other way. It did kind of have this really family vibe every episode. And apparently that was the work of Clinton Gent Gent guy who just really knew how to put people together.

Yeah, that GQ editor really nailed it. It just looked like a party you wanted to be at, like everyone was having a good time. Yeah, for sure. So some of these dancers went on to be famous and were kind of discovered there. Jodi Watley, the singer, she started out as a teenager on soul trainer.

And Don Cornelius was like, you're super talented, I'm a business man, I'm going to

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 in 1977, they got together. And then after Shalimar Jodi Watley went on to become Jodi Watley, that's right. You mentioned rerun from what's happening, Nick Cannon, Carmen Electra, which I didn't know that she started out there, that kind of surprised me.

“I didn't either, her real name is Terri Lee Patrick, did you know that?”

I don't know if I did or not, I knew it wasn't Carmen Electra. Yeah, no, it's not that. Although she looks way more like a Carmen Electra than a Terri 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 '80s, because you know, you think about the salad days of soul train and you'd probably think of the '70s, but the '80s were pretty big and it went all the way to 2006, but in the '80s is when the hip hop influence came on and Rosie Perez brought that Brooklyn New York City hip hop flavor and if you go back and watch some of her stuff on soul train, it's like the dancing school, it's much different than that sort of '70s

groove. It was that sort of New York City hip hop style. Yeah, she does it like the beginning of, what does it do the right thing? Yeah, that's her dancing at the beginning of, right?

“Yeah, that was straight up soul train, that's what she did on soul train, 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." Rosie Perez being smart, street-wise, Rosie Perez said, "That's great, I'll show it to my lawyer."

And apparently, Don Cornelius did 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, do you want them to lock into, or for any reason, really. And to get him all of her, she threw a piece of the fried chicken she was eating at a 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 is not cool at all, 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 he arrested or was he just charred?

I think he was charged with domestic violence against his Russian Ukrainian wife. Yes, he was, at least, charged, I don't know if he was convicted, but there was a, yeah,

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 a 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 just to straight up,”

like nothing but a smooth, cool cat, he was a complex human being who had faults as well, too. Yeah. 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 to the forehead. 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 Rosie Perez.

No, I would never mess with Rosie Perez.

And he didn't know that. His signature sign off was, I'm Don Cornelius, and as always, in partying, we wish you love peace and soul. Yeah. There were a couple of other people who kind of rose to prominence, too.

Cheryl Song. She was the first Asian dancer on Soul Train. 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 Germaine Stewart, who you might recognize as the singer, if we don't have to take her clothes off, and that's pretty cute, because he came back home and performed it on Soul Train in 1986. And when Don Cornelius was introducing a music saying, he made good, and we're all very proud of him.

And like you mentioned, the Irish Carmen Electra, who, I guess, stood out because she was

“river dancing on Soul Train, and everyone's like, what is that?”

What is that?

But then everybody wanted to do it, because it was Carmen 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 going to start my own Soul Train and try and bury Don Cornelius, and I'm going to call it Soul Unlimited. I'm going to 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 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 it was very cool. No, it isn't very cool.

I could see Dick Clark being a little blind to the larger implications of it, you know? And you know, I don't know if he was involved in its cancelling 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 Dick Clark went along with they're not.

I like to think he was like, okay, I see the error 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? Yeah, which I think rightfully so too. Yeah.

Yeah. There were other performers, later on they would have white performers, David Bowie, very famously was on there. Oh, no. Did you watch that?

It did. Oh, it was awful. They're pretty bad lip sync job, which Cornelius gave him kind of teased them about.

And then Elton John, who was always had a pretty big following in the African American

community. Oh, I know that. Did you? Yeah, yeah. He wrote about it in his autobiography that I read last year.

That's cool.

“I think it started when a Reeth of Franklin covered, burned down the mission if I'm not”

mistaken. Okay. Was that the one you recorded? I think that's the way it went down. No.

That's long 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 70's stuff. Like a lot of really don't like it. Wow. But I like his 80's stuff, like the whole I'm still standing thing. Okay.

It was burned down the mission before that. Yeah, yeah. That was a nice one. I guess. My follow question is what problem did he have with the mission?

He didn't write it. Okay. Bernie Talpen wrote all his lyrics. Oh, I see. Now, I am a Bernie Talpen.

You're a national treasure. Thank you. 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 hate that song. Or the other one, it's such a good song.

But he takes questions and you can tell he's kind of shy and a little nervous. And he takes some questions 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. Yeah.

Because he's known for being a humble, humble spirit.

No.

“Have you ever seen that documentary they made, or he self-made or no, as partner made?”

His partner was the only one he would let, you know, fall 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. Tantrums and Tieras, I think.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That was great, man. I loved it.

Yeah. He's good. I like that rock-it-man movie a lot too. I have not seen that. I saw it over someone else's shoulders on a plane.

You wouldn't like it. I didn't. I didn't look like anything I would like. No, if you don't like Elton John, he would like the movie about Elton John. No.

And again, Sir Elton. I have no problem with you personally. It's just that period through 70s, the 70s, like crocodile rock, the one about it, like fill it off your freedom. You know, all those bad 70s albums, madmen across the water and Captain Fantastic, and

goodbye, Elbic Road. Those are all terrible. Exactly. I feel understood, Chuck. Thank you.

So the 80s come along, and 1983 Don Cornelius has brain surgery, takes a little time off. It comes back, the soul train has changed their look a little bit, trying to fit with what's going on at the time with Whitney Houston and people like that. And then hip-hop and rap come along, and apparently Don Cornelius is not a big fan.

“Yeah, I think I've read, I can't remember, I read a really great article in days 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.

Basically explain 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 toward getting a piece of the pie that wasn't the white pie. It was the pie that white people controlled, and if you made your way to get a piece of this, 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 to integrate.

And 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. He appreciated smoothness, and hip-hop especially 80s hip-hop was the opposite of smooth. And so he was not vibing on it at all, and even referred to himself as an old guy sometimes when he was interviewing some of the hip-hop artists who came on soul train in the 80s.

Yeah, I watched one of the public enemy clips, and it was weird, afterward, he basically ignores Chuck D. And like, talks only to flavor-flave, and then finally turns to Chuck. It was like, and now Chuck D. He said, "You must feel so blessed to 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 a quite a character as you can see." Yeah, I just, I don't know, it really came off as like, don't grow in the earliest, it doesn't understand this. Well, I'm not dissing Flave, but like Chuck D was like, he was the leader of that band, you know?

Right, yeah. He was the brains behind the outfit for sure, and I mean, like, yeah, flavor-flave is just like, he's like, fills in to kind of hardness of Chuck D. Yeah. If you think public enemy, it's definitely flavor-flave, and Chuck D, but it's Chuck D.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And then flavor-flave.

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."”

Which one was that after? Because they were on at least twice on the regular show by my count, and then once on the sole train of wards, at least. Yeah, remember? So it's not like he wasn't smart enough to know that they were big and should be on any

way whether he liked him or not, but they did. They did can't trust it in 1991, and they did rubble without a pause in 1987, and I could not find the interview segment. I just saw like the performance. Yeah.

Both, like, really great. Well, it was very sweet, and actually it would have had to be in the '90s one, because afterward, flavor-flave asked for a moment of silence for the passing of Miles Davis and Red Fox. And they'd take a moment of silence.

That's awesome. That was cool. And that's actually, in case we haven't gotten this across enough yet, sole train, again, was

it never got away from like its black roots, like it never sold out or anything like that,

They wouldn't just edit that out in the episode that they published. Absolutely. That was just part of it, even as late as the early '90s. Yeah. And the early '90s is when Don Cornelius finally had to step down, May 10th, 1993, was this

final episode. He passed it on to the younger generation. It went all the way to 2006 and became the longest running syndicated show in TV history. Yeah.

35 seasons. Amazing. And those younger generation that he handed the reins over to some of the temporary hosts included Jamie Foxx, she got his start, Tyra Banks, and Shimarmor from Criminal Minds.

He was a longtime stand-in host. Really? Yeah. He's big time now. I don't know who that is.

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, Don Cornelius took his own life. He was suffering from Alzheimer's and apparently 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 took his own life. Yeah. Well, Pussy'd also sold the rights, I think, to sold trained too. And it seems like things kind of started to go downhill from around then, I think, in 2008.

Yeah. But yeah. Apparently, it was a really big surprise to everybody who knew him that he died by suicide, that was not the perceived outcome for him, I think. Yeah.

But his legacy lives on, like you said, I mean, the 35 seasons, the longest running, syndicated

television show of all time, in and of itself, it's an incredible achievement, 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 about as big an accomplishment 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, and soul train, that's how it went. 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. Yeah, get ready for some sick robot action.

This is so great, and rerun too, you can't forget about rerun, Fred Barry. No, it's sweet. Well, since we talked about Fred Barry, that means everybody obviously is time for listen or mail. This is about Iron Maiden, hey guys, listen to your short stuff on 666 and loved it, more

so for Josh's thoughts on Iron Maiden, hardest working band and business, seen them twice, I've been a Maiden fan for about 15 years, and I got to say, Josh was right on the

money when he said power slave was he 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, 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 he came to Perth.

“I think so, yeah, yeah, you missed a good show, that was it.”

I was thinking about how cool that town was the other day. Yeah, Perth was cool. Your discussion in delivery of interesting exciting topics week after week transmute information and understanding into very enjoyable entertainment into my earholes, bringing much joy not just to my commute but to my work life.

Lots of love from Mandura, Western Australia, and that is from Ty. Ty, I like this person. Yeah. Ty says that I'm right, which I love, likes Iron Maiden, loves Iron Maiden, you could say.

And his upset that we, that they missed our show, we'll be back. Sure, we will be, hey, you know we're like number one in Australia as far as podcast going. I heard that man there, 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

be there. Just keep it in your mouth. Keep your earholes out.

“If you want to be cool like Ty and get in touch of this, you can do that.”

You can send us an email, too. Stuff podcast at iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iheart radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio visit the iheart radio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary.

It was like the jazz chart, didn't always work, came with its own problems, that's what made

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This is sweet 305 here, oversharing is encouraged.

Listen to sweet 305 with little ponds on the iheart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans.

Carry Brownstein and Fred Armison here.

The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching pod landia, a.o. rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it.

I thought you were all going to write a song.

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