1936- 2012
I'm writing way too many of these posts..Of all the recurring posts that I write, these obituaries are the posts I'd rather not write. They found Don Cornelius in the foyer of his home...dead from an apparent self inflicted gunshot would.
The man was the creator and the host of Soul Train....Now , he's gone!....
What would my life had been like without Soul Train? I can't imagine....It would have been somewhat less richer than it was.. Every Saturday from the time I was 13 until I went off to college and even during my first years there...Me and everybody I knew that was under 25 was glued to our television sets watching Soul Train.
You have to remember...This was way before cable and MTV and even BET.....This was in 1971 , when it was just becoming cool to be Black. Soul Train introduced America to acts it wouldn't have normally seen on Television... War, Earth Wind & Fire, Mandrill, Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder,Marvin Gaye, The Ojays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes , Billy Paul.....and the list goes on and on.
Yeah, I remember...I would wash my father's car...and my brother and I would rush to somebody's room or to the big TV downstairs in the living room....The only one in the house that was in color...To see what new star or what new dance was going to be out.....Soul Train , for a time...was the epitome of hipness and cool.
Yesterday, when I heard the sad news on the Steve Harvey Morning show that Don Cornelius had died...apparently of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head....A part of my childhood , a part of my young adulthood died with him....
Today...We have nationally syndicated disc jockeys like Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Ricky Smiley...et al who can break a new artist on their radio shows...We have Black Entertainment Television and Centric and TV One, where you can see Black stars around the clock.....Before Soul Train came along...you had none of that and if Soul Train hadn't of come along when it did...You might still have none of that...
I don't know all of the circumstances of Don Cornelius's life or his tragic death by apparent suicide and it's not important that I write about them...Plenty of other bloggers and magazines and newspapers will do that...All I want to do is celebrate what the man meant to me and so many others...
In celebrating him....I'll close by saying ..."Thanks DC...Thanks for everything."
2 comments:
I hope you understand what I mean, but number 3 from yesterday seems to be the exact opposite of Don's choice.
Number three was an awesome portrait of Grace and Strength.
Thank you for sharing everything from the list, but number three was a major blessing.
SLC
He truly was an inspired INNOVATOR who saw a need, an absence in the marketplace & in this country, & did what he did so brilliantly to fill that absence. And we as Black folks, the entertainers who appeared on the show, the culture, the country & the world at large are all the better for it.
Beyond what he brought to the masses, there were a few decades when Don Cornelius was DEE COOLEST MOFO on the planet! Bar none! So he presented a modern day example of Black Manhood, whether or not that was ever his goal.
So, that place in my heart, that soul's space in my childhood, teen years & young adulthood where Soul Train reigned & proved to be just as necessary as Wonder Bread & Afro Sheen... that place is grieving right now.
RIP, Mr. Cornelius.
One.
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