October 2, 1971: "Soul Train" Premieres

Don Cornelius

October 2, 1971: Soul Train premieres in syndication. Created and hosted by Don Cornelius, then a 35-year-old journalist and disc jockey from Chicago, Soul Train was, for all intents and purposes, black America's version of American Bandstand, with beautiful young people dancing to the top hits of the day, a few of them per show with the actual performers on hand.

The guests on the 1st show: Eddie Kendricks, who had recently left The Temptations; another Motown act, Gladys Knight & the Pips; singer Bobby Hutton; and Honey Cone (not "The... "), who had recently had the Number 1 song in the country with "Want Ads." (Knight had had a hit with "Friendship Train" in 1969, but "Love Train" by The O'Jays was still a year away.)

There were plenty of black acts on predominantly white TV shows like Bandstand, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace, and, a little after Soul Train debuted, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Midnight Special. But there's "famous," and then there's "black famous": Black acts that are well-known to black Americans but almost unknown among white Americans, and Soul Train helped to elevate some of them into white awareness.

(An example from my own experience: In 1990, while visiting Chicago, I found a copy of the Chicago Bears' yearbook. In their player profiles, some players listed their favorite music acts. Most of the white players listed rock groups or country singers. Most of the black players listed black acts. No surprise there. But many of them mentioned "Frankie Beverly & Maze," a funk band from Philadelphia, which had been releasing high-selling albums since 1977. I was not a kid anymore, but had never heard of them, and, for another few years, I read the name as "Frankie, Beverly & Maze." I thought it was 3 guys, like "Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds.")

Without the success of Soul Train, it would have been harder, even in the coming Disco Period, to launch Dance Fever, Solid Gold, and Showtime at the Apollo. Perhaps The Arsenio Hall Show or In Living Color would have been the breakthrough show -- or maybe they wouldn't have been possible without Soul Train, either.

On January 8, 1972, Dennis Coffey, a guitarist from Detroit, became the first white artist to perform on the show, playing his hit instrumental "Scorpio," a song funky enough to sound like it had appeared on the soundtrack of "blaxploitation" films like Shaft or Superfly, and to later be sampled by hip-hop performers. 

On May 17, 1975, Soul Train featured Elton John, whose "Bennie and the Jets" had hit Number 1 on not just the pop chart, but also the rhythm & blues (R&B) chart a few months earlier. He sang "Philadelphia Freedom," and fit right in. On November 4, 1975, David Bowie sang "Fame" and "Young Americans" on Soul Train.

Cornelius hosted the show through 1993, long after soul music had ceded leadership of black American music to disco, then hip-hop, concluding every episode by wishing his audience, "Peace, love, and soul!" He continued to produce it until 2006. In its later years, the show correctly claimed to be the "longest-running first-run, nationally syndicated program in American television history." The game show Wheel of Fortune surpassed it as such in 2018. Suffering from seizures for several years, Cornelius took his own life in 2012.

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October 2, 1971 was a Saturday. Singer Tiffany Darwish, who used only her first name, was born on this day.

Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4. Tito Fuentes and Willie McCovey hit home runs, and Willie Mays went 1-for-2 with 2 walks, in support of Gaylord Perry. Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell both went 0-for-4. But the Pirates won the next 3 games to take the Pennant.

The American League Championship Series got underway the next day, and the Baltimore Orioles swept the Oakland Athletics in 3 straight games.

There was college football, including these games:

* Number 1 Nebraska beat Utah State, 42-6 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Cornhuskers went on to win the Big 8 Conference title.

* Number 2 Michigan beat Navy, 46-0 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines went on to win the Big 10 Conference title and complete an undefeated regular season.

* Number 3 Texas beat Oregon, 35-7 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. The Longhorns went on to win the Southwest Conference title.

* Number 4 Notre Dame beat Michigan State, 14-2 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. The Fighting Irish went 8-2, but losses to USC and LSU denied them a major bowl berth, so they didn't go to any bowl game.

* Number 5 Auburn beat Kentucky, 38-6 at Cliff Hare Stadium (now Jordan-Hare Stadium) in Auburn, Alabama. Auburn were led by quarterback Pat Sullivan, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy that season.

* Number 6 Colorado beat Kansas State, 31-21 at Folsom Field in the Denver suburb of Boulder, Colorado.

* Number 7 Alabama beat Mississippi, 40-6 at Legion Field in Birmingham. The Crimson Tide went on to win the Southeastern Conference Championship and complete an undefeated regular season, but lost the Orange Bowl, and thus the National Championship, to Nebraska.

* Number 8 Oklahoma beat Number 17 Southern California, 33-20. The Sooners went on to reach Number 2, facing Number 1 Nebraska on Thanksgiving Day for the Big 8 title, but lost. They still went to the Sugar Bowl, where they beat Auburn.

* Number 9 Penn State beat Air Force, 16-14 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. The Nittany Lions blew a shot at the National Championship by losing their last regular-season game to Tennessee, before beating Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

* Number 10 Stanford were upset by Number 19 Duke, 9-3 at the old Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California. Stanford still managed to win the Pacific-8 Conference title, and beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

* In a rivalry known as "The Backyard Brawl," West Virginia University beat the University of Pittsburgh, 20-9 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* Army beat Missouri, 22-6 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* And among New Jersey schools, Rutgers lost to Cornell, 31-17 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; while Princeton lost to Columbia, 22-2 at Wien Stadium in Manhattan.

In high school football, East Brunswick, in Central New Jersey, which would one day be my Alma Mater, lost to Woodbridge, 14-12 at what would soon be known as Jay Doyle Field. And in the original "football," North London soccer team Arsenal, defending Champions of England's Football League, traveled to The Dell in Southampton, Hampshire, and lost to Southampton, 1-0.