Planet Money - 'Soul Train' and the business of Black joy

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

When Soul Train first launched in 1970, Black audiences weren't understood as a viable target market. Don Cornelius changed that forever with his weekly TV dance show. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Planet Money from NPR. Okay, y'all ready? Yes, I am ready. Not long ago, our valiant producer, James, took us down a pretty joyful rabbit hole. Hold on. Remind me what we're doing. We're watching old school Soul Train videos. I can't dance because then I'll bump the mic. Was that a kalimba already?

This opening is imprinted in my mind along with Reading Rainbow. The graphic is so iconic, like of the train going through. That's Chicago. I didn't realize that. That is Chicago, isn't it? Soul Train. Soul Train, Erica. Even if you've never watched this show, even if you've never heard of its conductor, Don Cornelius, the cultural cornerstone that is Soul Train has inevitably touched your life.

That funky 70s neon train bumping and jumping on the tracks signaled the weekly start of a revolutionary television dance show. Sonari, we spent over two hours watching some of the greatest moments from Soul Train. Yeah, like that one time when Mary Wilson from the Supremes convinced Don Cornelius to go down his own Soul Train line. You think I could come up that Soul Train line? Look how big his afro is and that tie with giant polka dots. All righty, here we go with the JBs, Fred Wesley and the JBs, and doing it to death.

How you feeling, brother? Oh, man. You feeling good? We should roller skate to this. I think if I tried doing that now, I'd probably break a hip. Oh, my God. Oh, there she is.

Look at them. Oh, that's a beautiful... Oh, my goodness. He's got like a little glide thing. He's got a two-step glide. Glide, glide. When they say black excellence, that's a beautiful... Oh my goodness. He's got like a little glide thing. He's got a two-step glide. Glide, glide. When they say black excellence, that's it right there. We also watched when Stevie Wonder made up a song about

Soul Train on the spot. Soul Train. Oh my goodness. When I was nearly yours. And let me hear everybody say. This is so stunning.

Where all the brothers and sisters get together. Like this is, this is, this is televised black joy. James, thank you for bringing joy into our lives. 1971. That was the year that Soul Train first hit our national consciousness. Making the show 50 years old. 50 years. And over that time, beyond just the magical made-for-TV moments, the show has given us oh so much.

The robot? That was Soul Train. The moonwalk? That was Soul Train. Poppin' and lockin'. Also, Soul Train. From where we stand now, we know that Black culture is, was, and will always be influential. That is pretty obvious. But until Soul Train, Hollywood, Wall Street, and Madison Avenue weren't so sure that Black culture could make money. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sonarion Glenton. And I'm Erica Barris.

Today on the show, the business of Black joy. How Don Cornelius became Soul Train's conductor and opened the door for generations of Black creators in Hollywood. Erica, I feel like you and I cannot talk about Soul Train unless we talk about where it started. In my hometown, Chi-town, Chicago, in the year 1969. Now, remember, this was one year after the assassination of Martin Luther King when riots devastated many American cities. And Chicago was becoming the poster child for urban decay and segregation. And out of this tumultuous moment strides a confident, stylish, young Black man with a love of all things Black. That confident, stylish, young Black man

is Don Cornelius. We're going to take our first call. Yes, do you have an opinion as to who our most effective and relevant Black leader is? Yes, yes, Jackson. Don was a TV newsman covering the civil rights movement. And that activist energy rubbed off. But Don's contribution to the movement wasn't necessarily a march or a boycott. It was dance. Don Cornelius would do a party. He'd have a local group. Maybe the impressions if he was lucky or someone like that.

Come on. And that was the beginnings of the Soul Train idea. That's Nelson George. He wrote the book on Soul Train. It's called The Hippest Trip in America. Don Cornelius was a newsman, but he was also a DJ. And a lot of DJs were hosting parties to make extra money. Don decided, let's put some of those parties on TV. Maybe I can get a little corner of the local market. He had a model to follow. There were already long-running TV dance shows like American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, and Shindig. But they were never focused on Black youth. They were always kind of white kids, maybe a token or two Black couple dancing. And they'd have Black talent, but they would not necessarily have Black audiences.

And Don's idea was to, how do I do this with a Black audience, with Black music? Black people on television being themselves. It doesn't seem radical or revolutionary now, but in 1960s America, it was. On television, Black people were a novelty. You know, if you saw a Black person on TV, you'd call up your friends and be like, turn on Channel 7. So Don has the vision. Make a televised dance show for and about Black teens. But he knows he can't just go to the TV station

where he works and ask for a time slot. He has to sell them on it. He needs to show them that his idea can bring in money. By getting a sponsor. Almost immediately, he finds one, one of the world's biggest advertisers, Sears and Roebuck. It was headquartered in Chicago, and it was the go-to local sponsor. Don was lucky. He had a buddy, a white guy, in the marketing department at Sears. And it just so happens that around this time, Sears was beginning to focus on urban stores and the Black consumer. So Don's friend says, sure, Sears will advertise on your show. And that proved to be a very fateful decision on the part of those local Sears guys. That was the beginning of Soul Train and the business of Soul Train. Now, just to note,

this idea that Sears had to think of the Black consumer as an integral part of the economy, well, that was not just Sears' idea. There were a whole group of Black entrepreneurs who emerged from the civil rights movement, who believed what feels kind of like a basic truth to me, that Black joy wins. And Black joy was winning. Motown was dominating record charts. A book called The $30 Billion Negro, written by a Black journalist, hit bestseller lists in 1969, saying basically Black consumers should not be ignored.

In the late 60s, Black folks, especially Black people who wanted to be in marketing and in business, were just trying to show the white business world that the Black consumer market was very vital and very lucrative. There's no essence. There's no Black enterprise. The Black advertising agencies are still very, very new. So there's not a lot of discussion in the white business world of the Black consumer as a target market. So now Sears is the local sponsor of Soul Train. And that makes it an easy sell to the TV station. Now, Sonari, there are some moments in business that are only huge in retrospect. Exactly.

IBM could have owned Microsoft. And Blockbuster Video could have owned Netflix. Google could have been bought by Excite. Who? Exactly. And Sears, or the local TV station that first broadcast Soul Train, could have owned the show.

But they didn't think to do it. Don Cornelius would say later that they didn't imagine how big his idea could be. I don't think anybody knew what it was, but they could have said to me when they said, OK, you go ahead and try that Soul Train stuff, but you sign this right here and we own it. And I wouldn't even have blinked. I would have just signed it. But they never said that to me. They never said that to him. And Don Cornelius became 100% owner of Soul Train. The sole owner

of Soul Train. Gotta love that. In 1970, the show launched out of a small TV studio filmed in Chicago's Board of Trade building. It looked like a low budget local show. It didn't even have color cameras. It was broadcast in black and white, But it was an immediate sensation. The local music acts, the teens who showed up to dance on the show after school, from the very first airing, black and white Chicagoans tuned in. Almost immediately, those cool Chicago teens in their style, their big afros, that made Soul Train so attractive to seers would get the notice of an entire industry that was growing. Hair care. Hair was literally growing and caring for naturals and afros was becoming a moneymaker.

And that money would fuel Soul Train, help it go from local air to TV screens all over the country. Makita, serene, majestic, beautiful queen of Shiva. Johnson products, started by George Johnson and his wife Joan, would corner the black hair care market in the 60s with their Afrosheen. And when the Afro became the hairstyle, Afrosheen became the product. She is black essence, and her beautiful natural hair is her crowning glory. Afrosheen concentrated shampoo pampers and conditions as it cleans. More hair, more product, more money.

More money to spend on advertising and marketing. George Johnson was impressed by Soul Train, and he offered to sponsor the show to the tune of $600,000, which is about $4 million in today's money. But only if Soul Train did something no Black-owned show had done yet. Go national. Don's show hadn't even been on the air for a year, and now he's taking it to Los Angeles. Nelson George again. L.A. is clearly the new Mecca, and Motown's about to move. L.A. is clearly the new Mecca. And, you know, Motown's about to move to L.A.

And so it was a natural place to be because the biggest challenge of being in Chicago was booking talent. Don knew the show needed more polish, more professionalism, and also some color cameras. Also, bigger stars. And Hollywood had them. Coming up, Don finds bringing Chicago cool to sunny Los Angeles. That ain't so easy. In 1971, when Don Cornelius moved Soul Train to Los Angeles, he needed to capture the magic that made the Chicago show work,

starting with the dancers. In Chicago, Don knew where to find them. But in L.A., he needed help. That's where Pam Brown came in. In Los Angeles, Pam knew every teenager who could do the bump or hustle. She was the teen coordinator for the city, and it was her job to find activities to keep young people busy when they weren't in school. Pam and Don met at a rec center. He had this very deep baritone voice. He was a slow walker and a slow talker. Always stylish in his clothes. He always had a pinky ring on.

And that was my vision of being real cool. I need to get myself a pinky ring. Don got Pam to organize dance auditions for his show. Gotta love the hustle. But Pam says he found out the L.A. teens were different. When Don would come to auditions at the different parks, he says, you know, these kids don't really know how to dance. This is not really what I'm looking for.

You know, there was a lot of acrobatics in it. A lot of props were being used. And I said, well, these are the L.A. kids. In Chicago, the dance style was more subtle, laid back. You don't get too sweaty. In L.A., they went hard. Way bigger, more theatrical. But Don doesn't have much choice because remember who he is right now.

He's got that Afrosheen money, but only if he can get soul training off the ground in L.A. No one's exactly rolling out the welcome wagon. Don pitches his show to the networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and they all say no. He was turned down by so many people. No one was interested in a Black dance show. And another challenge was many of the stations that did accept him were airing the show two o'clock in the morning, midnight. Here in Los Angeles, it was like 11 o'clock on a Saturday. When the networks turned down the show, that meant Don had to sell Soul Train market by market, station by station. But it also meant Don still owned the show fully.

If Soul Train took off, Don would get all the profits. But until then, he had all the risk. And he doesn't have anywhere to shoot, so he finds a TV studio that he can rent on weekends. He scrounges up a crew, and he doesn't have a caterer the way, you know, you'd get in a Hollywood TV set. Instead, he feeds everyone with a pallet of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Oh, my God. The first episode of Soul Train aired in 1971. Gifted and talented Gladys Knight and the dancing, swinging, singing pips.

But when it first aired, the show was only in seven markets. Don and Afrosheen had a goal of 24. That wasn't Don's only problem. We got one big star for the opening show, which was Gladys Knight and the Pips. After that show, we were really skinning our knees up, trying to get serious major people. It's a music dance show that's having trouble getting music acts. A true dilemma. In that first national season, even though he's come to L.A. for the talent, he's booking acts from...

Chicago. His name is Curtis Mayfield. In the meantime, he's knocking on hotel room doors all over the city, trying to bring whatever big names he can onto the show. There were a lot of acts coming through Los Angeles. You know, the Isley brothers, the OJs, you know, Marvin Gaye. That's Bruce Toloman. He was a photographer for the early years of Soul Train, and he saw Don's hustle behind the scenes. Don would make sure that they were taping if a big act was coming in. And so that meant that he didn't have to pay for their hotels or he didn't have to pay for their air flight to come out

because he was double dipping. And while all that was going on, one thing did work, like really well. Those dancers Don had been dubious of, they were a hit. Arthur Nelson-George says the dancers were the first stars of the show. Thanks to them, syndication began to pick up and the show moved to a better time slot on Saturday mornings. You know, it used to be if there was a hot dance in the East Coast, your cousins from New York and Philadelphia would come in the summer and they would show the dance. Dances traveled almost like word of mouth, right?

Suddenly, you watch someone do a particular move on a Saturday morning, 11 o'clock. 12.30, 1 o'clock on the playground, that same dance is being done. American dance and black vernacular dance was transformed by Soul Train. By season two, that little booking problem Dom had in season one, it's not really a thing anymore.

Now there's a whole cavalcade of stars coming onto the show, including Aretha Franklin, the Jackson Five, and Al Green. Love. Oh. Oh, wow.

Big mamas all over America right now. I guess, like, having to take a pause on the couch. Remember an Al Green in 1972? Lord. And then, episode 19, smack in the middle of the second season, Soul Train booked the artist that would submit the show's status, putting it at the nexus of black music, fashion, and business. I'm talking Soul Brother number one. What would you like to start out with? Well, I'd like to start out with our current thing right now.

The only way we can get a lot of things done is to get on a good foot. I can dig it. One time for James Brown. The number one booking that Don always talked about that was crucial was getting James Brown. Get past the people, get past the good men. Once Brown agreed to do the show, it opened a lot of doors. I want to get on the good foot. I want to do it with the good foot. do the show, it opened a lot of doors. This moment when James Brown first comes to Soul Train is legendary. Not just because James Brown is appearing on a TV show hosted by a black man. Remember, that is very huge.

Yeah, but the even bigger deal is what James Brown notices the day of the taping. James Brown comes to the sets of Soul Train. He's looking around at the lights, at the camera people, and he meets Don and says, well, who's your partner? Bruce Talibon, the Soul Train photographer, was there when it happened. You know, as I'm photographing Don and James Brown, I hear James asking, so who are you with? Who are you with, brother? You know, who are you with? And he was asking, you know, who of the non-colored persuasion was backing you financially?

And Don Cornelius turned and looked at him and said, James, it's just me, brother. I'm back in this. I have heard this story dozens of times, and I love it every time. Like, just think about it. This is James Brown at his most James Brown. He is the biggest Black artist of the day, probably ever. This superstar can't conceive of a show that is not just for black people, but owned by a black man. And he's looking at Don Cornelius and he's looking at all the black photographers and the cameramen and the showrunners and he is impressed. It's like game recognizing game. And the thing about Don's success is it's connected to the success of a whole bunch of other Black business people, starting with his sponsor, hair care magnate, George Johnson of Afrosheen.

Soul Train's success is also tied into a movement of Black entrepreneurship in media, because suddenly, as Soul Train succeeds in the early 70s, you know, George Johnson's hair ads are blowing up. And that gives a way to argue that you should be advertising through a Black agency, for a Black TV show, for a Black audience. All of it unprecedented. In 1971, George Johnson's company, Johnson Products, became the first Black-owned company listed on the stock market. I want a Superfrog.

Get the blowout kit. How about an Superfro. Get the blowout kit. How about an Afropop? Get the blowout kit. And for a soulful cornrow? Afrosheen's blowout kit. Makes your hair softer, more lustrous, and easier to manage. Makes any style... You know, if I had hair, I'd get a blowout.

The young woman in that ad, Demita Jo Freeman, she first got noticed on Soul Train. And ads like this help turn Black teens into a target market for advertisers. It is the creation of a whole Black entertainment advertising business ecosystem. And it lays the foundation of what would become Black Hollywood. Because Don wasn't just opening the door for Black talent, he was keeping it open. He would give somebody Black a chance to do the work. Soul Train photographer Bruce Talleman again.

Don was a race man, and Don liked to work with Black people. In Hollywood, generally when I would go on these sets, you know, quite frankly, the only things that were Black would be me and my cameras. You know, you'd go on and the crew would be all white and the cast would be all white. And when I say Don was a race man, you would look around and you would see the teen coordinator. She was black. Producers, they were black. The announcer was black. I'm just saying, you know, he did it with black folks. Bruce says yes. Don gave black people an opportunity to work on Soul Train, which a paycheck is nice.

But bigger than that was the credit on their resume they might not have gotten anywhere else. But we have to mention, not everyone was getting paychecks. No matter how successful Don got, he always ran a tight ship. This was not party time. This was a business. And he was fronting this business, so he was counting every penny. Which, I will say, I think the dancers could have been treated better. Okay, what do I mean by that?

The dancers were never paid. The dancers got a box of chicken and a soft drink. And that was it. Soul Train's audience continued to grow through the 70s, 80s, and held strong until the 90s. It even went international. All through the rise of disco and hip hop and even MTV, Don Cornelius' Soul Train kept getting superstars. Prince, Run DMC, and a young and skinny Snoop Dogg. It made stars out of some of those unpaid dancers. Fred Berry, known as Rerun, starred in the TV show What's Happening. Demita Jo Freeman, who was in that Afrosheen commercial, she became a big deal choreographer. And Rosie Perez, she got her start as a dancer on Soul Train.

The last dancers hustled down the Soul Train line in 2006. When the show ended, Soul Train was the longest running TV show in syndication history. Nelson George says the genius of Don Cornelius isn't just that he introduced a generation of creators to Hollywood, it's that he introduced Hollywood to the very idea of Black folk as creators. Black joy is a business. And we, you know, we had been through an era of struggle, of marching, and the simplest ideas are often the most revolutionary. Putting Black people on screen, having a good time,

you know, it seems like such an obvious thing. Every music video is basically that concept. It never had happened before. And Don had the dream to do that, to put these folks on and just let them be themselves. When Don Cornelius died in 2012, Soul Train lines broke out around the globe. People strutted, sashayed, and roller skated down the line with their kids, their big hats, loud patterns, and of course, giant afros. Mourning the man and celebrating all that he created. If you want to talk with us about music, email us at planetmoney at npr.org.

Also look for us on social media. We're at Planet Money. I'm on Twitter at Sonari. Well, this is not his first credit, but this Soul Train was conducted by the Reverend James Sneed. He's an associate producer, but I say he should dust off his television ideas, you know what I'm saying. This episode had production help from Corey Bridges, fact-checking by Reese Atkinson-Wipps. It was engineered by Isaac Rodriguez and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Special thanks to former Write-On magazine writer Flo Jenkins, Chicago DJ Richard Steele, and Ayanna Contreras, whose book Energy Never Dies, helped inspire this very episode. Please check out the episode Sam Sanders and our friends at It's Been a Minute did on Soul Train, where they take a look at the cultural impact of the show. I'm Erika Barris. And I'm Sinari Glinton. And in parting, we wish you love, peace, and soul. This is NPR. Thanks for listening. And a special thanks to our funder, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,

for helping to support this podcast.