With the passing today of Don Cornelius, the inevitable tributes to him will be flowing for the next week or so, especially from the African-American media. Little if any of it, though, will likely probe deeply into the cultural significance of the Soul Train program, especially what it meant at the time of its debut nationally in 1971. I'd like to raise this as a discussion apart from the thread about his passing.
Cornelius was mostly lucky above all else, in that he happened to be noticed at a time when American TV was looking to diversify itself and break out of the mold of the "one size fits all" demographic approach of its early days. Producers, if not networks, took note of the social changes of the 1960s and realized that untapped potential existed in exploiting previously ignored or under-served markets like the black community. Now, Dick Clark's American Bandstand had been running for years, and was an established hit with kids of all kinds. But he didn't really have real competition from another network or syndicator. Cornelius was an up-and-coming host and producer in Chicago who had just gotten a local "dance party" for black kids started on WCIU-TV, an independent that was full of brokered ethnic programming in those days. But he got a major sponsor in Sears, and when the Johnson hair care products company decided to get in on the act, Cornelius took a gamble and went out to L.A. to go national with it, premiering in September 1971. At first, only seven stations (outside Chicago) signed up, but the number built slowly over the first year.
That same TV season, another groundbreaking all-black show debuted, Sanford and Son, which quickly became a Top Ten favorite with all Americans. Simultaneously, Soul Train and Sanford not only allowed white, middle-class Middle Americans a rare peep into two expressions of indigenous African-American culture (respectively, music and comedy exemplified by Sanford star Redd Foxx), but finally allowed black performers a real place in the sun in a medium that was nearly as segregated as any other significant institution in American society, with Bill Cosby being the only notable exception. TV entertainment had always been several steps behind politics and culture, and it showed by the end of the Sixties. By the mid-1970s, though, things had changed irrevocably, with several all-black and women's lib sitcoms going and Soul Train being one of TV's most successful syndicated programs.
Cornelius presided over numerous changes in music styles, from the mainstream soul of the show's beginnings, into the disco of the late Seventies, the synth-funk of the early Eighties, and, finally, the rap and hip-hop from the late Eighties onward, with some neo-soul thrown into the mix toward the end. He probably became a major player in the black music industry, with his show determining the popularity of songs on radio and breaking new artists, probably more so than Dick Clark did for Top 40.
So, with all that in mind, what do you think was the greatest contribution of Cornelius and Soul Train to American culture and to TV history?
Cornelius was mostly lucky above all else, in that he happened to be noticed at a time when American TV was looking to diversify itself and break out of the mold of the "one size fits all" demographic approach of its early days. Producers, if not networks, took note of the social changes of the 1960s and realized that untapped potential existed in exploiting previously ignored or under-served markets like the black community. Now, Dick Clark's American Bandstand had been running for years, and was an established hit with kids of all kinds. But he didn't really have real competition from another network or syndicator. Cornelius was an up-and-coming host and producer in Chicago who had just gotten a local "dance party" for black kids started on WCIU-TV, an independent that was full of brokered ethnic programming in those days. But he got a major sponsor in Sears, and when the Johnson hair care products company decided to get in on the act, Cornelius took a gamble and went out to L.A. to go national with it, premiering in September 1971. At first, only seven stations (outside Chicago) signed up, but the number built slowly over the first year.
That same TV season, another groundbreaking all-black show debuted, Sanford and Son, which quickly became a Top Ten favorite with all Americans. Simultaneously, Soul Train and Sanford not only allowed white, middle-class Middle Americans a rare peep into two expressions of indigenous African-American culture (respectively, music and comedy exemplified by Sanford star Redd Foxx), but finally allowed black performers a real place in the sun in a medium that was nearly as segregated as any other significant institution in American society, with Bill Cosby being the only notable exception. TV entertainment had always been several steps behind politics and culture, and it showed by the end of the Sixties. By the mid-1970s, though, things had changed irrevocably, with several all-black and women's lib sitcoms going and Soul Train being one of TV's most successful syndicated programs.
Cornelius presided over numerous changes in music styles, from the mainstream soul of the show's beginnings, into the disco of the late Seventies, the synth-funk of the early Eighties, and, finally, the rap and hip-hop from the late Eighties onward, with some neo-soul thrown into the mix toward the end. He probably became a major player in the black music industry, with his show determining the popularity of songs on radio and breaking new artists, probably more so than Dick Clark did for Top 40.
So, with all that in mind, what do you think was the greatest contribution of Cornelius and Soul Train to American culture and to TV history?
