Soul Train: How Chicago birthed the “hippest trip in America”

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For more than 3 decades, Soul Train brought the coolest music and dancers to TV sets across the country. It also featured the coolest host, Don Cornelius, who started the program in Chicago in a studio the size of a small living room at WCIU Channel 26. On the 53rd anniversary of Soul Train going national, we take you back to its earliest days, and see how it still looms large over local culture.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Soul Train, the place of love, peace, and of course, Seoul,
0:05.0	was one of the longest running TV shows in history.
0:09.0	It was broadcast nationally for decades, from the 70s through the early 2000s, and everyone knows the ever so cool Don Cornelius,
0:24.6	the show's creator and longtime host.
0:27.6	Hey, Don, welcome aboard.
0:29.6	I can guarantee you'll enjoy the ride, especially if you like your soul ice cold,
0:32.6	because none other than the ice man himself is going to be looking right dead in your eyes.
0:37.8	But before that, it started here in Chicago.
0:41.6	There were about 10 of us that were in high school together, and we all went together.
0:45.5	You cut school, didn't you?
0:46.6	We cut school in the afternoon to get downtown.
0:49.2	That's Curious City listener Larry Arroyo, and his mom Debbie.
0:53.2	Yeah, and I got grounded when I got home.
0:56.9	Showed up on TV, what do you expect?
0:59.8	Larry wrote to us to learn more about that earliest period of Soul Train that a lot of people
1:05.4	don't know about when it began here in Chicago.
1:08.6	And at that time, his mom and her friends weren't the only ones cutting school.
1:13.2	I mean, these kids were dying to be on television, show their dancing skills, and be there
1:19.1	on Soul Train with Don Cornelians.
1:21.2	I remember the big apple hats and them dancing and the bell bottom pants.
1:25.4	You also had to go home.
1:26.4	You had to change your clothes.
	...

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