| Soul Train | |
|---|---|
 Title screen | |
| Created by | Don Cornelius |
| Presented by | Don Cornelius (1970–1993; 734 episodes) Various celebrity hosts (1993–1997; 128 episodes) Mystro Clark (1997–1999; 76 episodes) Shemar Moore (2000–2003; 112 episodes) Dorian Gregory (2003–2006; 68 episodes) |
| Narrated by | Sid McCoy Joe Cobb Jim Maddox (substitute) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 1,117(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Production locations | WCIU-TV studios Chicago, Illinois (1970–1971) Metromedia Square Los Angeles, California (1971–1981) A&M Sound Stage Los Angeles, California (1981–1984) Hollywood Center Studios Los Angeles, California (1984–1993) Paramount Studios Los Angeles, California (1993–2006) |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | Don Cornelius Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | WCIU-TV (1970–1971) Syndication (1971–2006) |
| Release | October 2, 1971 (1971-10-02) – March 25, 2006 (2006-03-25) |
Soul Train is an American musical variety television show. After airing locally onWCIU-TV inChicago, Illinois, for a year, it aired insyndication from October 2, 1971, to March 25, 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances byR&B,soul, andhip hop artists. The series was created byDon Cornelius, who also served as its first and longest-serving host and executive producer.[1][2]
Production was suspended following the 2005–2006 season, with a rerun package under the monikerThe Best of Soul Train airing for two years subsequently. As a nod toSoul Train's longevity, the show's opening sequence during later seasons contained a claim that it was the "longest-running first-run, nationally syndicated program in American television history", with more than 1,100 episodes produced from the show's debut through the 2005–2006 season. Despite the production hiatus,Soul Train held that superlative record until 2016, whenEntertainment Tonight surpassed it in completing its 35th season. Among non-news programs,Wheel of Fortune surpassed that mark in 2018.
As of 2016, the rights to the Soul Train brand, library, and associated events, such as its cruises and annual awards show, theSoul Train Music Awards, are now under the ownership ofParamount Global, throughBET Networks.
The origins ofSoul Train can be traced to 1965 whenWCIU-TV, an upstartUHF station in Chicago, began airing two youth-oriented dance programs:Kiddie-a-Go-Go andRed Hot and Blues. These programs—specifically the latter, which featured a predominantlyAfrican American group of in-studio dancers—would set the stage for what was to come to the station several years later.[1]
Don Cornelius, a newsreader and backup disc jockey at Chicago radio stationWVON, was hired by WCIU in 1967 as a news and sports reporter. Cornelius also was promoting and emceeing a touring series of concerts featuring local talent (sometimes called "record hops") at Chicago-area high schools, calling his traveling caravan of shows "The Soul Train" and in 1970, allowed him the opportunity to bring his road show to television.[1]
After securing a sponsorship deal with the Chicago-based retailerSears, Roebuck and Company,Soul Train premiered on WCIU-TV on August 17, 1970, as a live show airing weekday afternoons. Beginning as a low-budget affair, in black and white, the first episode of the program featuredJerry Butler,the Chi-Lites, andthe Emotions as guests.[3] Cornelius was assisted by Clinton Ghent, a local professional dancer who appeared on early episodes before moving behind the scenes as a producer and secondary host.[4]
The program's immediate success attracted the attention of another locally based firm—theJohnson Products Company (manufacturers of the Afro Sheen line of hair-care products)—and they later agreed to co-sponsor the program's expansion intobroadcast syndication. Cornelius andSoul Train's syndicator targeted 25 markets outside of Chicago to carry the show, but stations in only seven other cities—Atlanta;Birmingham;Cleveland;Detroit;Houston;Los Angeles; andPhiladelphia—purchased the program, which began airing on a weekly basis on October 2, 1971. By the end of the first season,Soul Train was on in the other eighteen markets.[5]
At the time, there were no other commercial television programs being produced by black people for a black audience;[1] the only nationally available show by blacks for blacks at the time was the public television seriesSoul![6] When the program moved into syndication, its home base was also shifted to Los Angeles, where it remained for the duration of its run.Soul Train was part of a national trend toward syndicated music-oriented programs targeted at niche audiences; two other network series (Hee Haw for country music, andThe Lawrence Welk Show for traditional music) also entered syndication in 1971 and would go on to have long runs.
Though Don Cornelius moved his operations west, a local version ofSoul Train continued in Chicago. Cornelius hosted both the local Chicago-based and national Los Angeles–based programs simultaneously, but soon focused his attention solely on the national edition. He continued to oversee production in Chicago, where Clinton Ghent hosted episodes on WCIU-TV until 1976, followed by three years of once-weekly reruns.[7] The syndicated version was picked up in the Chicago market byCBS-ownedWBBM-TV at its launch; the program moved toWGN-TV in 1977 and remained there for the rest of its Chicago run.
Don Cornelius hosted every episode ofSoul Train from 1970 to 1993, except forRichard Pryor, who hosted the final episode of Season 4 (1974–1975).[citation needed] Beginning in Season 15 (1985–1986),Tribune Entertainment acquired the syndication contract; Tribune Entertainment continued producingSoul Train until the end of the show's run on March 25, 2006.
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Don Cornelius stopped hosting after 22 seasons (1971–1993), though he remained the show's main creative force from behind the scenes.[1] The following fall,Soul Train began using celebrity hosts until comedianMystro Clark took over as the host in 1997.Shemar Moore took over as the host in 2000. In 2003,Dorian Gregory took over as the host, and stayed until the end of the show's run in 2006.
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Production of first-runSoul Train episodes was suspended at the conclusion of the 2005–06 season, the show's 35th. In place of new content, for two seasons starting in the 2006–2007 season, the program aired archived episodes (selected from between 1973 and 1988) under the titleThe Best of Soul Train.[8]
This was because in later years,Nielsen ratings dropped to below 1.0; most of the stations that airedSoul Train by that point were eitherFox television affiliates orindependent stations that would later become affiliates ofThe WB orUPN, and, in the process, some of the stations which had been airingSoul Train on Saturday afternoons started rescheduling the program to overnight time slots. The future ofSoul Train was uncertain with the announced closing of Tribune Entertainment in December 2007, which left Don Cornelius Productions to seek a new distributor for the program.[9] Cornelius soon secured a deal withTrifecta Entertainment & Media.
When Don Cornelius Productions still owned the program, clips of the show's performances and interviews were kept away from online video sites such asYouTube owing tocopyright infringement claims.[citation needed] Cornelius also frowned upon the unauthorized distribution ofSoul Train episodes through the sale of third-party VHS orDVD compilations.
In May 2008, Cornelius sold the rights to theSoul Train library to MadVision Entertainment, whose principal partners came from the entertainment and publishing fields. The price and terms of the deal were not disclosed.[10] However, by the start of the 2008–09 television season, theTribune Broadcasting-owned stations (including national carrierWGN America) that had been the linchpin of the show's syndication efforts dropped the program, and many others followed suit.Soul Train's website acknowledged that the program had ceased distribution on September 22, 2008.
Following the purchase by MadVision, theSoul Train archives were exposed to new forms of distribution. In April 2009, MadVision launched aSoul Train channel onYouTube. Three months later the company entered into a licensing agreement withTime Life to distributeSoul Train DVD sets.[11][12] MadVision then came to terms withParamount Global-ownedBET to relaunch theSoul Train Music Awards for BET's spin-off channel,Centric, in November 2009. Centric would broadcast archived episodes of the program. Archived episodes can also be seen onBounce TV.
MadVision sold the rights toSoul Train in 2011 to a consortium led by basketball playerMagic Johnson and backed by private equity firmInterMedia Partners. The Johnson-InterMedia consortium planned on a potential film project that Cornelius had briefly mentioned prior to selling the franchise, as well as producing potential stage adaptations and a cruise.[13] As part of the sale, Johnson'sAspire TV channel also began airing reruns of the series.
Cornelius continued to appear forSoul Train documentaries and ceremonies until his death by suicide in February 2012. In 2013, Centric began presenting a cruise-based revival, marketed asSoul Train Cruise.[14]
All rights and trademarks to theSoul Train brand including the show's extensive library, the annual cruise event, and the award shows are under the ownership of Paramount Global after itsParamount Media Networks division acquired the franchise in 2016.[15]
Some commentators have calledSoul Train a "blackAmerican Bandstand", another long-running program with whichSoul Train shares some similarities. Cornelius acknowledgedBandstand as a model for his program; as the years advanced andSoul Train evolved into a tradition in its own right, he tended to bristle at theBandstand comparisons.[16]
In 1973,Dick Clark, host and producer ofBandstand, launchedSoul Unlimited — controversial for its pronounced racial overtures[citation needed] — to compete directly withSoul Train. Cornelius, with help fromJesse Jackson, openly accused Clark of trying to undermine TV's only black-owned show. Agreeing[citation needed],ABC canceled it after a few episodes. Clark later agreed to work with Cornelius on a series of network specials featuring R&B and soul artists.[17]
Cornelius was relatively conservative in his musical tastes and admitted he was not a fan of the emerginghip hop genre,[1] believing that the genre did not reflect positively on African-American culture (one of his stated goals for the series). Even though Cornelius featured rap artists onSoul Train frequently during the 1980s, he publicly would admit to the artists' faces, such asKurtis Blow, that the genre was one that he did not understand. As rap continued to move further towardhardcore hip hop, Cornelius admitted to being frightened by the antics of groups such asPublic Enemy.[18]
Rosie Perez testified in the 2010VH1 documentarySoul Train: The Hippest Trip in America that Cornelius also disliked seeing the show's dancers perform sexually suggestive "East Coast" dance moves. Cornelius admittedly had rap artists on the show only because the genre was becoming popular among his African-American audience, though the decision alienated middle-aged, more affluent African Americans like himself. This disconnect, which was openly mocked in anIn Living Color sketch titledOld Train, where Cornelius and the show were lampooned as extremely old and out of touch, eventually led to Cornelius stepping down as host in the early 1990s, and the show losing its influence.[18]
Questlove, drummer for hip-hop bandThe Roots and a fan of the program, authored a book chroniclingSoul Train. TitledSoul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation was published in 2013.[19]
The opening sequence showed a black animated locomotive with multicolored smoke coming out of its smokestack, and steam coming out of its sides, passing through a city, tunnel, or through outer space around the Earth.[20] The scenery around the train changed as years went on. The Soul Train logo was featured, with a song or instrumental playing throughout. One of the most distinctive parts of the opening was when “Soul Train” was announced, stretching out the first word into a high-pitched imitation of a train whistle.
Within the structure of the program, there were two enduring elements. The first was the "Soul Train Scramble Board", where two dancers are given 60 seconds to unscramble a set of letters that form the name of that show's performer or a notable person in African American history. In describing the person's renown, the host concluded their description with the phrase "...whose name you should know". Cornelius openly admitted after the series ended its run that the game was usually set up so everybody won in an effort not to cause embarrassment for the show or African Americans in general.[citation needed]
There was also the popular "Soul Train Line" (a variant of the 1950s fad then known asThe Stroll), in which all the dancers form two lines with a space in the middle for dancers to strut down and dance in consecutive order. Originally, this consisted of a couple—with men on one side and women on the other. In later years, men and women had their own individual lineups. Sometimes, new dance styles or moves were featured or introduced by particular dancers. In addition, there was an in-studio group of dancers who danced along to the music as it was being performed.[21]
Rosie Perez,Damita Jo Freeman,Darnell Williams, Cheryl Song, Louie "Ski" Carr, Alfie Lewis,Pat Davis ("Madam Butterfly"), Alise Mekhail, Andrea N. Miles,Carmen Electra,Nick Cannon,Vivica A. Fox,MC Hammer,Jermaine Stewart,Heather Hunter,Fred Berry,Laurieann Gibson,Pebbles, andNFL legendWalter Payton were among those who got noticed dancing on the program over the years.[22] Two former dancers,Jody Watley andJeffrey Daniel, enjoyed years of success as members of the R&B groupShalamar after they were chosen bySoul Train talent booker/record promoterDick Griffey and Cornelius to replace the group's original session singers in 1978.[23]
Each musical guest usually performed twice on each program; after their first number, they were joined by the program host onstage for a brief interview. From time to time, stand-up comedians, such asTom Dreesen (whom Don Cornelius knew from his time in Chicago) andFranklyn Ajaye (known in the 1970s for being a star of the hit movieCar Wash), would be featured on the program to perform a brief comedy routine.
Soul Train was also known for two popularcatchphrases, referring to itself as the "Hippest trip in America" at the beginning of the show and closing the program with "...and you can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey. I'm Don Cornelius, and, as always in parting, we wish you love, peace...and SOUL!"[20]
In 2019,BET selected various historic guest stars asMost Memorable Soul Train Performances. The list includedGladys Knight andThe Jackson 5, among others.[24]
In 1985, Cornelius gave permission for a version of the show in the United Kingdom. The British version, hosted by formerSoul Train dancer and member of ShalamarJeffrey Daniel, was titled620 Soul Train and ran for one series onChannel 4.
In 1987,Soul Train launched theSoul Train Music Awards, which honors the top performances in R&B, hip hop, and gospel music (and, in its earlier years, jazz music) from the previous year.
Soul Train then produced the short-livedSoul Train Comedy Awards in 1993, which discontinued that same year.[25]
Soul Train later created two additional annual specials:The Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, first airing in 1995, celebrated top achievements by female performers; and theSoul Train Christmas Starfest, which premiered in 1998, featured holiday music performed by a variety of R&B and gospel artists. Award categories for theSoul Train Lady of Soul Awards presented to female recipients included:[26]
Special awards were given
TheLady of Soul Awards andChristmas Starfest programs last aired in 2005, before emerging again years later. In April 2008, Don Cornelius announced that year'sSoul Train Music Awards ceremony had been canceled. Cornelius cited2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike by theWriters Guild of America as one of the reasons, though a main factor may have been the uncertainty surroundingSoul Train's future. Cornelius also announced that a motion picture based on the program was in development.[27] Subsequent owners of the franchise have followed their own agenda for the program, which included a revival of theSoul Train Music Awards in 2009.
In November 2023, theSoul Train Spirit of Soul presentation was resurrected; singerJanelle Monáe was cited for itsSpirit of Soul award.[28]
The 2024 fantasy-comedy filmBeetlejuice Beetlejuice includes a sequence that pays direct homage to the show, including a group of people in the afterlife dancing on a train platform as they await the arrival of the "Soul Train", conducted by a entity strongly resembling Cornelius as music evocative ofSoul Train's theme plays on the soundtrack.
Soul Train used various original and current music for theme songs during its run, including
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