Tuesday, November 29, 2011

It's Soul Train



I miss Soul Train.

Dig those threads. Dig those moves. Dig those chicks.
 
Soul Train was your real deal. If Soul Train were on today, I'd never miss an episode. Soul Train was reality television that showed actual reality and everyone knew it was reality. No one had to designate it as reality, which is a far cry from the situation you have today.

Code orange news alert: if they are trying hard to convince you it's reality, it probably isn't.

Dancing with the Stars? No way Nancy Grace or Tatum O'Neal or Tom Delay could rock "Ballero" like the Soul Train Dancers did. And they were winging it. So You Think You Can Dance? Yeah, right. Hey ABC and FOX--turn your ears on and dig this: You're shoveling pure candy-assery.

Give me that animated train from the Soul Train intro over your computer generated graphics any day of the week. I loved the way they said "Soooooooooooooul Train." Sometimes I say "Soul Train" like that just because I want to. Who cares?

Ride the Soul Train!

And what about Don Cornelius? What about his suits and that snazzy train-thingie he stood on to announce the Soul Train Dancers? What about that? Huh?

I'm going to iTunes right now and buying "Ballero" by War just because of this video.

I miss Soul Train.

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12 comments:

Seals said...

Man, I loved Soul Train.

Kalei's Best Friend said...

omg, what brought this on, Erin? I was in high school when that show was on..wow, what memories. Would of thought u were too young to know that show.

Anonymous said...

TV today is only good for college sports other than that pretty much crap.
James Old Guy

rraine said...

we used to say, back in the day, that no matter what time you took a nap, when you woke up, soul train would be on!
i dig those shoes...

philbilly said...

This was in fact the original PSA. Untold millions of stoned white people learned how to dance in the privacy of their living rooms in the wee hours after SNL and Don Kirchener's Rock Concert were over.

I once fixed the brakes on a '56 Bentley owned by the dude at 1:07 and 3:47. He tipped me with a little bag of weed. Whenever he saw me driving down Euclid Avenue he and his smokin' hot girlfriend would beep and wave.

R.I.P. Andrea True

dean said...

I grew up in the Canadian sticks and we didn't get Soul Train.

If you dig war, dig this.

Kirk said...

I love the Soul Train theme music. At the beginning of this decade there was an emerging trend in radio, what some were hailing as the "next big thing", that was called Old School Urban or something like that. It was '70s soul, the same kind of music that played on Soul Train. At least one local station here in Cleveland, I've forgotten which, used to have that format. I had my radio tuned to it all the time, and liked it so much that I went out and bought a CD of the music from that era. Staple Singers. Patti LaBelle. War. This was music I totally ignored when I was in high school, so it was all new to me. Unfortunately, the next big thing only lasted a year, in Cleveland anyway, and the station switched to something else.

Philbilly mentioned Soul Train coming on after SNL. But I remember for a couple of years in the '70s it was on after saturday morning cartoons on channel 8, where it went head to head with American Bandstand on channel 5. Ignorant youth that I was, I foolishly opted for Bandstand. In the immortal words of Lou Costello, I was a baaaaad boy.

Ms Amanda said...

Bad. Ass.

philbilly said...

I saw the Staple Singers sometime in the early 70's. What stuck in my mind was how crystal clear Roebuck "Pops" Staples' Fender guitar sounded behind the vocals, in an age where fuzz and wah-wah pedals had taken hold.
Bad. Ass.

DogsDontPurr said...

I know that this is off topic, but I found this over at Velociman's place. It just seemed like something you might want to see:

http://www.velociworld.com/Velociblog/Oldvelocity/003792.html

Anonymous said...

The credits to Spike Lee's "Crooklyn" run on top of one of the Soul Train's lines. But the music on the soundtrack is rap...juxtaposed w/the slick 70s dancing, it is brilliant!

Bill said...

Herm Cain @ :40. The Cain Train!