Black Joy on Television: The Cultural Legacy of Soul Train

Photo: Soul Train Holdings LLC

First, watch this:

That right there is an innovative and extremely influential artist in action, displaying a unique style and incredible stage presence. James Brown ain’t bad either.

The woman dancing onstage is Damita Jo Freeman, who was one of the breakout stars of the television show "Soul Train" during its 70s heyday. A graceful and highly controlled dancer, she studied ballet with George Balanchine in New York and gave up a job with Leonard Bernstein to appear on "Soul Train". On set, she mixes classical and street moves with flare and fluidity, crafting her own vocabulary of movement that proved deft, limber, witty, and playful. Even the Hardest Working Man in Show Business was transfixed. At a certain point during his performance, Brown gives up the pretense of singing to the audience and directs “Super Bad” directly to Freeman.

It’s hard to say which was more important to the success of "Soul Train": the music or the moves. The well-known funk and pop artists who (usually) lip-synched their latest hits were very often upstaged by the flamboyantly dressed dancers gyrating for the camera. On a certain level, it makes sense: Guest artists came and went, but the dancers remained constants on the show, even though for many years they were not paid. “When people tuned into the show, they didn’t just tune in to see their favorite performers—they tuned in to see their favorite dancers come down the Soul Train line,” writes Ericka Blount Danois in her recent book, Love, Peace, and Soul: Behind the Scenes of America’s Favorite Dance Show Soul Train: Classic Moments (Backbeat Books).

Love, Peace, and Soul (which takes its title from host Don Cornelius’ sign-off) is just one of three recent titles on the long-running, groundbreaking show. Questlove culled personal memories and full-color photographs for his coffeetable book, Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation (HarperDesign). Nelson George, a filmmaker and pop historian, based The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture and Style (William Morrow) on the 2010 VH-1 documentary of the same name. Each explores the history of "Soul Train" from slightly difference perspectives, yet each argues persuasively for the show’s immense cultural legacy. It’s impossible to overstate the show’s influence, especially considering its longevity. "Soul Train" ran 1,000 episodes over 36 seasons, debuting on October 2, 1971, and signing off on March 25, 2006 (followed by two seasons of archival clip shows). Weathering every pop trend from funk to disco to new wave to new jack swing, it is a vivid chronicle of black popular culture in the late 20th century.

Not bad for a show that started in a cramped attic studio in downtown Chicago, where the lone window-unit air-conditioner would usually freeze up. “In order to get to the back of the set, there was a door in the audio room to pass through,” Danois writes. “The turntable was right next to the door. As people would walk through the door, the record would skip as the live show was on air.” Cornelius, a beat cop turned radio DJ, had the idea for “a black 'American Bandstand',” which would show black teenagers dancing to the latest hits by black musicians. Networks rejected it, claiming a show featuring black dancers would be a hard sell to affiliates in the South. Instead, Cornelius agreed to syndicate the show, which proved crucial to the show’s autonomy and longevity. Still, stations around the country either didn’t air it or buried episodes in late-night times slots.

Photo: Soul Train Holdings LLC

Despite these setbacks, "Soul Train" became a hit. More than a hit, actually—a singular institution in American pop culture. It created a platform for black artists and presented black culture—fashion, dance, politics—in a positive light. “Inspired by the civil rights movement, [Don Cornelius] saw a space for black joy on television. He believed that the music and dance of ‘negroes’ would be as captivating on the tube as it was in a Chicago house party,” George writes in Hippest Trip in America, a breezy and loosely structured account of the show. Cornelius’ motivating belief made "Soul Train" a radical counterpart to the dismal, racially suspect 1970s.

George wisely grounds the show as a reaction to the race riots of the previous decade—specifically the Watts Riots that tore through black Los Angeles neighborhoods in 1965. "Soul Train" showed blacks coming together in joyous celebration, and it’s impossible to discount the impression that would have made on viewers of any age or color. According to George, it “connected all of black (and a hip section of white, Latino, and Asian) America into a groovy community.” Even as it implicitly encouraged a sense of racial community, the show also allowed for unbridled individualism, not only favoring singles and pairs dancing over group choreography but also allowing the artists and dancers to sport some of the loudest, wildest, weirdest outfits ever to grace your television screen.

Of these three books, Questlove’s is the most grounded in personal experience. “My 'Soul Train' education began when a zigzagging animated train came barreling down the tracks, looking like it might burst right through the screen,” he writes. “It scared the living daylights out of me.” He writes of watching dancers like Freeman and Don Campbell. He worked hard to replicate their moves, then showed them off to his friends. He was awed by Barry White’s 42-piece Love Unlimited Orchestra, and was wowed by the Jackson 5 and New Edition. Of the latter’s mix of Temptations suavity and b-boy dance moves, he recalls that “It was so well put together that even a traditionalist like my dad accepted it with a head nod.”

This personal perspective is important within the history of "Soul Train", and not merely because those experience informed Questlove’s work with the Roots. More crucially, this book shows what it was like to live with "Soul Train" on a day-to-day basis, to wait for it to air after Saturday morning cartoons, to get so excited that you run dripping wet out of the shower to catch a performance by Curtis Mayfield. Questlove may not have as much to say about what went on behind the camera, especially not compared to Blount or George, but he speaks volumes about what went on in front of the television. His book has the impetus of memoir, which makes it a nice companion to Mo Meta Blues.

Photo: Soul Train Holdings LLC

Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation also has something else the others lack: full-color photographs. There are lots of them here, beautifully reproduced and almost uniformly fascinating. Especially during the 1970s, fashion proved increasingly flamboyant as artists and dancers alike vied for the camera’s attention. The Pointer Sisters sported vintage 40s dresses and hairstyles, while Labelle appeared to have beamed down from a spaceship circling the Earth. James Brown, in a shirtless leather outfit, looks like a wrestler; Al Green looks like a Dickensian street urchin. Sure, the styles are dated, but not kitsch. Instead, they seem to be living up to this televisual moment, presenting a joyous spectacle that would preempt channel surfing. Of course, the photos are only as compelling as their subjects, so the book loses some of its steam in the 1980s, when artists toned down their wardrobes considerably, adopting sleeker lines and more muted color palettes (although the early 1990s were a burst of vivid hues, thanks largelty to acts like TLC).

And as vivid as they may be, none of these books can really compete with that clip at the beginning of this article. "Soul Train" was about dance, movement, and music—what they conveyed in America and to America during the last quarter of the 20th century—and none of that can be adequately reproduced in text to match the vitality and vibrancy of the original medium. This is not the authors’ fault, of course. Questlove’s book is a fitting visual history of "Soul Train", while Blount and George explore the show’s impact well beyond the television screen. But you shouldn’t read any of them without YouTube pulled up.

With that in mind, here are ten must-see clips from the first decade of "Soul Train":