Stuff You Should Know - The Soul Train Episode

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Today, Chuck and Josh dive into the funky, cool world of the classic TV show, Sooooooooul Train. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a skyline drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's 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 hear yours. I know you can do it.

The Soul Train. It's so much higher than that. That was good though. Not really. But 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 age now.

Okay, sure. Let me ask you this, Chuck. Are you aware of Soul Train while it was on? Oh yeah. Okay, then you're super old. 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 watched Solid Gold to be sure, an American bandstand, 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 was shows like Soul Train where I could, because often I couldn't stay up to watch late night talk shows where you see performances. This is where I got to see live music before I could start 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 a.m. depending on where you were and seeing 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 that was a huge mark that Soul Train left was just presenting that, but that had been done before. There was American bandstand. 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 wasn't critical that didn't portray it in some sort of negative light or in a way that 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. Yeah. I mean, like you said, bandstand had been around since 1952 and this kind of was known as the black American bandstand and it followed that format. It was people, a live music performance, a host interviewing and talking to these people,

these musicians afterward briefly and then beyond that, just awesome music spinning on the turntable and amazing dancing, amazing outfits, amazing hairstyles 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 definitely by black people and for black people, but it was an introduction to black culture to white kids like me, little eight-year-old Chuck in Stone Mountain, Georgia, sitting around watching the Soul Train dance line. Yeah, I can imagine it was mind-blowing, Chuck.

And I think it wasn't just, 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 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 he was involved in a protest and the protest was kind of presented in a particularly negative agitating light or he was a sidekick on TV or a servant or in some kind of goofy comedy or something like that. In Soul Train and do that, there was no subscribing to all the preconceived notions that there

had been before. It was just its own thing. It was like, hey, by the way, 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. Dave, I thought it was kind of astute that he said it was kind of like a lifestyle brand

before that was such a thing because these people were influencers. What you saw on Soul Train, you wanted to dance like that. You wanted to wear those clothes. If someone debuted a sweet move that you saw on Saturday morning, you would practice that move in your living room and then debut it at your club that night. There were some pretty sweet moves that were debuted on Soul Train. The sweetest. We did an entire episode on the moonwalk, if you'll remember correctly.

That was originally called the back slide. That was created on Soul Train, the robot, the rerun dance. Man, there's so much sweet robotting going on. Yes. That's where it came from. Apparently, no one did the robot. These were 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

then they come bring it to Soul Train again. Then kids would watch that. 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. Yes. I've read a couple of these quotes that 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 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 to be free and how to love in a deeper and better way. 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 too have a place on TV. Yes. I can't imagine what Common's babysitter, how excited she must have been to get to be on Soul Train. That must have been the biggest thing possible. Like they said, it was the hippest trip on television. That was not much of an exaggeration, especially at the time, especially when you compared it

to American bandstand at the time, which when Soul Train came along, you said bandstand had been on since 1952, almost two decades by the time Soul Train comes along. There was a TV critic in 1973 who wrote, I believe for the New York Times, that comparing Soul Train to the old American bandstand is like comparing champagne to seltzer. Burns, that had to hurt Dick Clark. 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.

If not, somebody may have read it to him and it hurt his feelings. There's no way it didn't. We can't talk about Soul Train without talking about Don Cornelius. No. Don Cornelius was the host and creator 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 is not a common thing. They usually put him in league with Desi Arnes, who owned I Love Lucy, and Mike Douglas, who owned the Mike Douglas show. Even like the creators of a show, you don't own the show that you created. Like you have some sort of deal with somebody to help produce it, or a network has exclusive rights to it, or somebody else at least owns some other piece of it. This was 100% Don Cornelius's jam. And there's a legend that kind of goes along with that, that James Brown came on very early

on in like 1972 or three. And he was like, so who's backing you on this, man? Who's backing you, 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 he kind of asked it again, didn't think to rephrase it in different words, just asked

the same question. Don Cornelius answers in the same way, he says, it's just me, James. Like he got what he was 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 Soul 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.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best

decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? Don't leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when

the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So, I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down.

Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so young Don was born in Chicago, on the south side, in the neighborhood of Bronzeville, known as the Black Metropolis.

He was the son of a postal worker and was a marine. He joined the marines after high school, fought in South Korea. After that, comes home to Chicago, sells cars for a little while, sells insurance for a little while, and then says, 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 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 in 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. We're going to 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 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 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, rival Barry White. He also pulled over the guy and said, license and registration, baby. Yeah. So that helped. Yeah. Do it at Sammy Davis Jr. pulling him over 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, have you ever considered going into radio? And Don Cornelius says, I haven't until now, but I'm going to give it some thought and not only does he give it some thought, it's not clear whether he actually gave Roy Wood the ticket or not, but he actually quits being a cop, goes and takes 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 WVON 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 call the velvet fog? That was Mel Torme. I always get those two confused. And Noel on Movie Crush, his nickname is Smokey Velvet.

Oh, that's nice. I'm not sure where that came from. Maybe I made it up. Smokey Gullet? Smokey Velvet. Oh, Smokey Velvet, Smokey Gullet. That's really gross. So he becomes a DJ at the radio station, like you said, and then is hired as a reporter,

a news reporter on TV for WCIUTV. He covered sports, he covered civil rights stuff. He had a show for the news program called A Black's View of the News, which is something you could only get away with in the 1960s. I think early 70s. Oh yeah, you're right. It would have been the 60s. Sorry.

Yeah. 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, that's where the name came from. Yeah. So he's like a TV broadcaster by day, radio DJ and sock hop 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 broadcasting course, after pulling over a radio executive who 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 this group called The Good Guys, these black DJs out of Chicago that were kind of known as the arbiters of cool. But he said that he later said they had this burning desire 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 these parties, these sock

hops and just kind of cool Chicago house parties that he was DJing, and just put them on TV, that 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 at the 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, I'll bet it was world changing. So when he moved it to Los Angeles in 1971, that black and white soul train, it used to

be on every weekday, they continued that. So it was two things. There was a full color nationally syndicated television show out of LA, but it was also a black and white local weekly, or weekday television show out of Chicago at the same time for like a good five years, they were both running at the same time. And so Don Cornelius was at the helm of both. So on Fridays, he would fly out to LA, shoot four episodes, two on Saturday, two on Sunday, 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. He was working hard. Yes, 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. This was kind of the first show of its kind, but that did open the door for Johnson Products,

another black owned Chicago business from husband and wife team, George and Joanne Johnson, that they started in 1954. And these commercials are so great too. They sold beauty and hair care products to African Americans. So Afrosheen and Ultrasheen were the two big ones and the two big commercials you see. And they became as much as part of the fabric of the show almost as like the soul train liner, the performers or anything else really. Yeah, and I think in large part because they were like our stamps.com, like one of the

earliest and longest running sponsors. So when they came on, what they were promoting with Afrosheen and Ultrasheen was radical and that it's saying, just let your hair grow naturally. These are hair products for African Americans to use when they're growing their hair naturally, not following white beauty standards. So it was like a perfect sponsor for soul 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 watch soul train religiously every week. Loved it from beginning to end. Even the Afrosheen and Ultra Sheen ads were heaven. Had the funkiest, 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 soul train? And be on it.

You know, I was a guest. Yes. I can't wait. We're going to debut that clip live. All right, let's do it. Want to learn about a terrorist or an un-colored actor, how to take a perfect boob and all about fractals, gang is gone, a till of the hunt, the Lizzie Borden murders and the Cannibal Run.

Don't explain everything to your brain. Explode. And die. This is something you should know. Word up, Jerry. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and

dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? Also leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it.

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart 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 ragtag UHF station, an independent station. And have you ever seen that movie, UHF, with Weird Al? Nope.

Oh, 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 shows. Of awful programming. But then their in-house programming was made by this ragtag group of inexperienced people. I read in the Chicago Reader, this kind of oral history of the local version of Soul

Train, the head cameraman at WCIU had strabismus and couldn't use the viewfinder in the camera. It was like that kind of ragtag group that just kind of got it done somehow. Wow. I just love that little tidbit. That's pretty cool. Yeah. 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, so iconic. Then you see Don Cornelius always dressed to the nines, the coolest cat maybe to ever be on television. We make Billy Dee weep with jealousy. Because he was a DJ previously, he just had that DJ lingo down. They put in one of the things, it's going to be a stone gas, honey. All that 70s sort of shaft-like talk was just who Don Cornelius was. 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 70s somehow. 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 guests, like we said, just like American Bandstand. 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.

Addie LaBelle, Barry White, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Al Green, just a murderer's row of rhythm and blues and soul performers. I think Gladys Night in the Pips was on the first syndicated episode. Yeah. 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. Certainly from that point on, he was always very deferential saying, if it weren't for Gladys, none of this would be here right now.

That's nice. Yeah. It was pretty cool of her. Have you ever eaten at Gladys Night'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 Gladys

Night does it right as well. Yes, she does. Have you ever had the smothered chicken there? I don't think so. Is it like gravy or something? Yes. And it is even better than the chicken and waffles. Really?

Yes. I can't not get the chicken and waffles though. Get both. Okay. Just get both. There's no reason to hold back at Gladys Night's House of Chicken and Waffles. Yeah. Eat a little bit of both and take the rest home.

Sure. Or eat it all. Yes. So Soul Train, of course, the musical performances were great and classic and iconic, but it's the dancing that is what it's really known for. 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 flyest dancers in the clubs, invite them to be on the show

and everyone else had to audition. Like thousands of people would line up and audition with their dance moves to be a Soul Train dancer. Yeah. And again, like Common's babysitter was saying, 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 national prominence. 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 shined too, whether you've got a lot of camera time or not, was in 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 so low, 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 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 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 and looks really great.

But you like mute it and put on different music? No, no. But other people have put their own tracks or other people's tracks through the 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 Boogie one is really good in particular. That is a good one. So they filmed four episodes in a weekend. Apparently the dancers worked pretty hard and Cornelius was pretty demanding of them. You couldn't chew gum, you couldn't curse. His mantra was be on time, be tactful, be creative, be funky, and be yourself.

Yeah. Worked to live by. They were unpaid too, typically. I guess you would be paid if you were dancing to a performer, but if you were part of the segments where it was just them playing music and people were dancing, you were unpaid. I think they'd feed you because again, you're doing two episodes over two days, so four total like you were saying. 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 too, 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 is 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 like really crazy good moves and getting them to come onto Soul Train, but of putting all sorts of different dancers who would normally be pretty competitive with one another. Finding groups that would kind of gel together like a family so that when you go back and

watch Soul Train episodes or when you were watching it when they were coming on the first time, you weren't sitting there seeing dancers like kind of sniping one another, backbiting or pushing each other out of the way. They did kind of have this really family vibe every episode and apparently that was the work of that Clinton 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. 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. Jody Watley, the singer, she started out as a teenager on Soul Train. And Don Cornelius was like, you're super talented, I'm a businessman, I'm going to pair you with this other guy, Jeffrey Daniel, and you guys should record music together. And that little group went on to be Shalamar, of course, in 1977 they got together. And then after Shalamar, Jody Watley went on to become Jody 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 Tara Lee Patrick. Did you know that? I don't know if I did or not. I know it wasn't Carmen Electra.

Yeah, no, it's not that. Although she looks way more like a Carmen Electra than a Tara 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 Soul Train. This was in the 80s, because 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 is it? Do the right thing. Yeah, that's her dancing at the beginning of her, right? Yeah. Yeah, that was like 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. She kind of rose to prominence as a Soul Train dancer very quickly. And Don Cornelius apparently was like, hey, I want to lock you into a contract and Rosie Perez being smart 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 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 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 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 charged, 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, he got into an entailment because of that, at least accusation that he had abused her. And then also apparently intimidated a witness into changing their story, he was charged with that 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 a straight up,

like nothing but a smooth, cool cat, he was a complex human being who had faults as well too. Yeah, absolutely. 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. He didn't know that. His signature sign-off was, I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, 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, and she said she had to really kind of prove herself that she wasn't just like the token non-African-American dancer, that she was actually a really good dancer, and she did. And then Jemaine 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 home and performed it on Soul Train in 1986. 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 Carmen 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 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. And I don't know if he was involved in its canceling or not, but some black leaders did

get it canceled. They started a campaign to say, no, just leave this one alone. I don't know how easily Dick Clark went along with it or not. I like to think he was like, oh, 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 stand on its own, you know? And I think rightfully so, too. There were other performers.

Later on, they would have white performers. David Bowie, very famously, was on there. Oh, man, did you watch that? I did. That was awful. Did a pretty bad lip-sync job, which Cornelius gave him, kind of teased him about. And then Elton John, who has always had a pretty big following in the African-American community.

I didn't 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 Aretha Franklin covered Burn Down the Mission, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. Was 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 Burn 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 70s stuff. Like a lot of really don't like it.

But I like his 80s stuff, like the whole I'm Still Standing thing. That's good. It was Burn Down the Mission before that. Yeah, yeah. That was in the 70s. My follow-up question is, what problem did he have with the mission? He didn't write it. Oh, okay.

Bernie Taupin wrote all his lyrics. Oh, I see. Now I am a Bernie Taupin fan. You're a national treasure. Thank you. 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 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 spirit. Is he? No. Have you ever seen that documentary they made, or he self-made, or no, his partner made? His partner was the only one he would let, you know, follow him around with the camera,

which is pretty understandable. Uh-huh. But he came out in the last, like, I don't know, decade or less? Yeah, the tantrums and tiaras, I think. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Man, I loved it. Yeah, he's good.

I like that Rocket 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. No, it didn't look like anything I 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 period through 70s, the 70s, like Crocodile Rock, the one about Philadelphia Freedom. Um, you know, all those bad 70s albums, Mad Man Across the Water and Captain Fantastic and Goodbye Ellabrick 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. He comes back, Soul Train has changed their look a little bit, trying to fit with kind

of what's going on at the time with, like, Whitney Houston and people like that. And then hip-hop and rap come along, and apparently Don Cornelius is 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, and it basically explained it like that Don Cornelius was like a mid-century integration-minded black businessman, and that he and his ilk and generation, they had been working toward, like, you know, getting a piece of the pie that didn't necessarily, it wasn't the white pie, it was the pie that white people controlled,

and if you're, you know, if you made your way to get a piece of this, like, 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, um, and that to him it was a step backwards, so he wasn't vibing on it at all. My own personal take is that he was a smooth customer, and he appreciated smoothness, and hip-hop, especially 80s 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 was interviewing, you know, 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 like, he basically ignores Chuck D, and like, talks only to Flavor Flav, and then finally turns to Chuck, and was like, and now Chuck D, he said, you must feel, uh, 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 quite a character, as you can see.

Yeah, I just, I don't know, it really came off as like, Don Cornelius doesn't understand this. I'm not dissing Flav, but like, Chuck D was like, the, he was the leader of that band, you know? Yeah, he was the brains behind the outfit for sure, and I mean like, yeah, Flavor Flav's just like, he's like, fills in the kind of hardness of Chuck D. Yeah. I don't, yeah, if you think public enemy, it's definitely Flavor Flav and Chuck D, but

it's Chuck D. Yeah. You know what I mean? And then Flavor Flav. 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? Cause they were on at least twice on the regular show by my count, and then once on the Soul

Train Awards at least. Yeah, I remember. So it's not like he wasn't smart enough to know that they were big and should be on anyway, whether he liked them or not. But they did, they did Can't Trust It in 1991, and they did Rebel Without a Pause in 1987. And I could not find the interview segment. I just saw like the performance, and they were both like really great. Well, it was very sweet, and actually it would have had to been the 90s one, because afterward

Flavor Flav asked for a moment of silence for the passing of Miles Davis and Red Fox. And they take a moment of silence. That's awesome. Yeah, it was cool. So, and that's actually, just in case we haven't gotten this across enough yet. Soul Train, again, was, it never got away from like its black roots. Like it never sold out or anything like that. Like it was, like that makes perfect sense that they would include that part.

They wouldn't just edit that out in the episode that they published. Yeah, totally. That was just part of it, even as late as the early 90s. Yeah, in the early 90s is when Don Cornelius finally had to step down. May 10th, 1993 was his final episode. He passed it on to the younger generation. That 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, got his start, Tyra Banks, and Shamar Moore from Criminal Minds. He was a long time stand-in host. Really? Yeah, he's big time now. I don't know who that is. I don't watch Criminal Minds either, but you've seen enough 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 had also sold the rights, I think, to Soul Train 2. And it seems like things kind of started to go downhill for him 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 that was not the perceived outcome for him, I think. 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 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. 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 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. It's so great. And rerun too. You can't forget about rerun, Fred Berry. No, it's sweet. Well, since we talked about Fred Berry, that means everybody, obviously, it's time for Listener 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 in the 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 the album to listen to if you've never really given them a chance. So Chuck, whip out that old beanbag, 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 you came to Perth. I think so. Yeah. You missed a good show. I was thinking about how cool that town was the other day.

Yeah. Your discussion and delivery of interesting, exciting topics week after week, transmute information and understanding into very enjoyable entertainment into my ear holes, bringing much joy not just to my commute but to my work life. Lots of love from Mandura, Western Australia and that is from Ty. Ty, I like this person. First of all, Ty says that I'm right, which I love. He likes Iron Maiden, loves Iron Maiden, you could say, and is upset that they missed our

show. We'll be back. Sure, we will be. Hey, you know we're number one in Australia as far as podcasts go right now. I heard that, man. They're practically begging for us to come back. We'll come back and we'll definitely go to Perth again. So don't worry, Ty.

We'll be there. Just keep your ear holes out. That's right. If you want to be cool like Ty and get in touch with us, you can do that. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Munga Shatigler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

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