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The Hippest Trip
in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style
by Nelson George
c.2014, William Morrow
$27.99 / $34.99 Canada
256 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
They should have called you Super-Fly.
Yep, that’s what you were, dancing in front of your TV every
Saturday, spinning on the carpet and waving your arms around
until you got yelled at for “gonna break something.” But you
were the flyest of fly. The only thing you were going to
bust was a move, just like on Soul Train. And in
The Hippest Trip in America by Nelson George,
you’ll read about the iconic TV program that you never, ever
missed.
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Everyone knew that Don Cornelius had “ambition;” he was a
car salesman, policeman and insurance agent before his
“foghorn voice” led him to radio in 1966. He made the
transition to TV two years later and he soon realized there
was a need for a “black” TV show. He presented the idea,
then found major corporate sponsorship, and on October 2,
1971, Soul Train appeared locally in Chicago.
The show was “’overnight hot’” but Cornelius knew there was
more to this idea. With another sponsor on-board for a
nation-wide launch, Cornelius pitched the show to the
networks, but they turned it down. He decided to syndicate
Soul Train and moved the show to Los Angeles.
Though the music was always the focus of Soul Train,
Cornelius knew that the dancers (in particular, those in the
Soul Train line) were what brought viewers back.
In L.A., scouts kept their eyes open for promising teens who
could dance, often mining prospects from three main area
clubs. Dancers performed for free and were fed chicken
dinners, but the real appeal of being a Soul Train
dancer was fame and the opportunity for a career in show
biz. It seemed as though every regular viewer wanted to be a
Soul Train regular, too.
But as much as Cornelius controlled his show (and, to a
certain extent, his dancers), he couldn’t control what
happened culturally. Early-90s fashions confounded him,
music videos concerned him, and gangsta rap made him
uncomfortable. And so, though the show would continue for
another 13 years, Cornelius announced in 1993 that he’d step
down as Soul Train host – a move that arguably meant
“the show was over.”
From its first pages and throughout, the word “joy” crops up
often in The Hippest Trip in America, and for good
reason: it was everywhere in the show and even more so in
this book.
I took great joy, in fact, in seeing how author Nelson
George sent me to the internet. His descriptions of what
happened through the years on Soul Train made me want
to see, too, and there are plenty of clips online. I also
liked the interviews with former dancers and the cultural
frame-of-reference included here, and the history of the
show – along with little-known tidbits – made this a great
(and surprisingly fast-paced) read filled with reminiscing,
“love, peace, and soul.”
Get out your bell-bottoms and your best dancin’ shoes, have
a good internet connection, and get ready. For you, The
Hippest Trip in America is a book you’ll want to bust
out and find. |
