On Saturdays, I'd study the "Soul Train" dancers and try my best to mimic their moves. With my siblings, in front of our old TV, you couldn't tell me I wasn't hip, as we'd bounce around doing the Click Clacks, the Shaft or Son of Shaft dances. If I had any edge at all as a teenager, I owe every bit of to Don Cornelius.
Cornelius was one cool cat.
Always sharply dressed, in the early days he used to sport a perfectly shaped afro. He was social- minded and showed it, like when he interviewed James Brown onstage and brought up urban crime.
When he did the "Soul Train Scramble" - dancers would move letters around to discover hidden phrases or names - the answers often were historic black figures such as Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman.
It's ironic that Cornelius' death yesterday, an apparent suicide, was on the first day of Black History Month. He was 75.
Cornelius may not be widely recognized as such, but he was a music pioneer who helped lay the groundwork for a host of music-oriented shows that we take for granted today. Because he regularly showcased African-American soul singers who, at the time, had few other national outlets, the former journalist changed the American music scene. He introduced millions to R&B, to groups such as Earth, Wind & Fire, the Jacksons and Cameo.
"It was totally discriminatory," Kathy Sledge, of Sister Sledge, recalled of the times.
"Soul Train," which started in Chicago in 1970, went national the next year. "There was black and there was white. There was pop and there was R&B. You had to have a top R&B record before they would even think about including you in the format of pop radio. With Don Cornelius, he sort of circumnavigated the madness," she said.
