from Entertainment Weekly:

Soul Train is slated for a Time Life DVD release that will include decades' worth of performances by Michael Jackson and many other artists, Variety reports. The deal with Time Life parent company Direct Holdings Americas will make the entire Soul Train catalog -- which also includes appearances by artists such as Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and the Temptations -- available for licensing and DVD for the first time. There are no specific release plans as of yet.

Oh, I can't wait!

Some high quality Soul Train clips,

The O'Jays - Back Stabbers


The Five Stairsteps - O-O-H Child


Minnie Riperton - Lovin' You

scriptgirl said:

Translation: Don't expect it anytime soon.

RipHer2Shreds said:

I was trying my best to ignore that part and keep my hopes up

RipHer2Shreds said:

I was gonna say the same thing.

RipHer2Shreds said:

still, i can't help but do this:

'bout damned time!

I hope they don't chop it up, I want to see eps in their entirety

Finally!!!!!

scriptgirl said:

co-sign.

Sweet!! About dang time. I gotta make sure I save my money for this DVD.

They best have some Switch on there

Hopefully,these DVDs will be released before Christmas.I wanna give these as Christmas gifts to a few people.

I'd wish they put of like snl every season - every episode!

I'm only somewhat excited about this. Time Life usually does good collections and did a great job with "The Midnight Special" DVDs. On those DVDs, they made kind of a "Best Of" collection with a different year on each DVD. Well, that worked well with "The Midnight Special" because that show was mainly about on-stage performances. But even on that show, apparently they must have to get permission from each and every artist to use them on the DVDs because I notice Prince isn't on there.

A show like "Soul Train" was made in a totally different way than "The Midnight Special". On-stage performances were only one part of the show. "Soul Train" not only had on-stage performances, but they also had songs played where the artist wasn't even present and these songs were played strictly for the dancers to dance to. I don't see Time Life including songs that featured strictly the dancers without the artist performing.

Then there's the "Soul Train Line" which is my favorite part of the show. I bet Time Life might include a line dance segment but it would probably be small clips from various line dance segments set to the music of one song which would probably be the "Soul Train" theme song which has been done before. I want to see entire songs in the line dance segment, and not just one or two songs, but many songs.

The way I see Time Life putting this collection together, is by year, just like they did with "The Midnight Special" collection. And then they would probably include on-stage performances only. Well, that could be pretty good also. However, we are talking about "Soul Train" here. You know what they are going to do don't you? They are only going to include peformances from the biggest, huge selling artists who have been played to death over the years, many of which have crossoved over to pop. These are the last performances I want to see. I want to see performances from the funkiest artists like The Barkays, Skyy, Cameo, etc. In other words, the "blackest" jams that haven't crossed over and been worn out over the years. I just can't see Time Life putting together a collection like this. I think we have had our best recent exposure to the show when they aired entire episodes a couple of years ago on WGN. I much rather they go back to doing that.

See what I mean....hugely successful artists that have been played over and over and over throughout the years. This is exactly what I don't want. I'd much rather see a performance from a group like "Skyy" doing "Call Me" with the band up on the stage holding the telephones up to their ears. Those type of performances and bands like those haven't been seen since their hey day.

But wouldn't artists on Midnight Special have signed releases to appear on the show back in the day-why would Time & Life need their permission assuming the releases are in place. Also, what if the artists are dead? What does Time/Life do then?

I don't know but they sure didn't have Prince on the 1979 DVD when he appeared on there and you know what a huge star he became. Also, you know how he is about his music and videos.

The reason I think that each artist has to give their permission is because of the "WKRP In Cincinnati" first season DVD that came out a few months ago. That's one of my favorite shows and I've been waiting for years for it to come out on DVD. I saw on a website a few years ago, that they were having trouble getting it onto DVD because a lot of the musical artists whose records were playing in the background, wouldn't give their permission. The website also said that they were thinking about releasing the DVDs anyway but considering dubbing over the background music with generic music. Well, sure enough, I saw the DVD in the store a few months ago, and on the back of the box, it has a warning that a lot of the original music has been ommitted. I left that box sitting right there in the store and I'm glad I recorded as many episodes as possible a few years ago when it was airing on CMT.

I agree with you guys...I want FULL EPISODES,not just a bunch of performance clips.I already have a collection of Soul Train episodes on VHS but it's not the complete episodes.

You didn't record any of the episodes that aired a few years ago?

vainandy said:

No,I didn't I'm lazy when it comes to recording things,lol.I'd rather just buy it elsewhere.There are 10 tapes of Soul Train footage available,if you know where to look

Oh hell, when they first started airing those old episodes, I started out recording them on VHS tapes. Then Finess told me that DVD recorders had finally gone down to around $100 and I went out and bought one immediately for the main purpose of recording those episodes. Then I transferred those previous VHS tapes over to DVDs also. Hell, I recorded 47 episodes while they were airing.

I see it like this, if something good comes on, I will make it first priority and break my neck to record it before the good thing runs out because it is rare these days that anything good comes on in this age of shit hop.

scriptgirl said:

From the desription, was this released (the statement) after MJ's death? Will they release thejm as best of's like the Jackson family on one episode, JB, ect or by seasons?

I am surprised it took those people doing the DVDS so long to get it together. These days, most tv shows release dvds without the original music played on it like it was on the show.

matthewgrant said:

Yeah! That's right!

matthewgrant said:

i could watch that .gif forever!

That's the way I've always danced. Ass shakin' honey. None of that choreographed Broadway looking shit people have been doing for years.

matthewgrant said: