Every Saturday morning in the early Seventies, I’d flip on the TV and watch Soul Train. Don Cornelius, the man with the velvet voice, hosted the shows back then. All the great soul artists, Aretha, Marvin Gay, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, showed up on this program. Don Cornelius died a few days ago, but memories of Soul Train will continue to live on.
Loved those huge ’70s afros!
I loved the Dance Line, Jeff!
Very sad indeed.
Don Cornelius apparently had financial and heath problems, Patti.
It was a fun show but sometimes it’s focus on black R&B got a little narrow. I enjoyed watching it too, though I recall it being on in the afternoon, on a weekday, not Saturday morning.
In the later years, SOUL TRAIN was moved around in the TV schedule, Rick. At the time, the early 1970s,it was the only outlet for black musical artists.
In the early/mid-1970s (my teen years–I’m a true child of the seventies), on Saturdays we would watch American Bandstand followed by Soul Train. We loved the variety of artists and, of course, the line dances! It was the first time that whites had en masse watched a show primarily aimed at a black audience (I’ll never forget those ads for Afro-Sheen). Several years later when I heard the line in David Bowie’s “Young Amerians” that goes, “Blacks got respect and whites got his soul train,” it made perfect sense to me.
R.I.P. Don Cornelius.
In the early 1970s, SOUL TRAIN was about the only televised outlet for black artists, Deb. Much of the SOUL TRAIN camera techniques then migrated to MTV a few years later. Don Cornelius was an iconic figure.