"Soul Train - Seventies Fun (The TV Show)"

Which is your favorite show on TV today? Some might argue that a series like 
The Big Bang Theory deserves a mention. Others would say that America's Got 
Talent is still one of the best reality shows around. However, do you still 
remember the Soul Train? It is one show that was the favorite of any seventies 
kid, and as they would tell you, different than most other shows of today.

What Made the Soul Train Special?

There are some movies or TV shows which make a special place in the hearts of 
people and are remembered for a very long time. One such TV show is Soul Train, 
which ruled the hearts of people of America from October 1971 to March 2006. 
This, of course, is a very long time for any TV show to continuously entertain 
its audience. 

Soul Train was an American TV show of music-dance and was first aired in 
national syndication on October 2, 1971. Then, after creating a long history of 35 
years, it went off the air on March 27, 2006. This show, with its trademark 
animated train opening, mainly featured the performances by soul, R&B, hip-hop 
and dance/pop artists. Though jazz, funk, gospel and disco artists were also the 
performers, Soul Train stood out on its own. Soul Train too left a mark of its own in 
the minds of the fans. Don Cornelius created this series, and he also was the 
executive producer and first host of this TV show. 

Influence

Some commentators called this program the "black American Bandstand." 
Bandstand was another program running for a long time and Soul Train shared 
some similarities with it. Cornelius acknowledged that Bandstand was a model for 
his TV program and as the time passed, Soul Train became a tradition of its own.

To directly compete with the Soul Train, the producer of Bandstand, Dick Clark, 
launched the show Soul Unlimited. Unfortunately, this fell into controversies for 
its noticeable racial overtures. Later, Cornelius and Clark worked together on a 
network specials' series that featured soul and R&B artists.

Program Elements

Inside this program's structure, two long-lasting elements were there. The first 
one was "Soul Train Scramble Board," where two dancers were given 60 
seconds for unscrambling some letters which formed the name of a performer of 
that show or a famous person in the African-American history. For providing the 
hint about that person, the host used to conclude their description using the 
phrase "whose name you should know."

The other one was "Soul Train Line," a 1950s-fad's variant then famous as The 
Stroll. In it, all dancers used to form two lines having a space in the middle for 
the dancers to swagger down and dance in a consecutive manner. Originally, a 
couple used to be there in this format with the women on one side and men on 
another. Later, women and men used to create their own individual lines. Some 
particular dancers used to feature or introduce new dance moves or styles. 

It sure has been a while since we saw something like the Soul Train, and we do 
hope that the show makes a come back to our TV screens sooner than later!

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