KemiVA said:

Right now I'm watching an 1981 episode featuring Patti Labelle and The Time.

Back when Jimmy Jam was slim.

MickyDolenz said:

KemiVA said:

Right now I'm watching an 1981 episode featuring Patti Labelle and The Time.

Back when Jimmy Jam was slim.

Hey now!

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Rosie Perez gettin it. I hope they show some more from the late 80s and also go into the early 90s (sorry Vain. )

I switched back to watch a bit ago (nothing else good is on tv), saw a male dancer in an ALF mask and zebra print smoking jacket. What the huh??? Dancing to U Got The Look. Now Soul Train is showing Madonna's Who's That Girl video. So far not feeling this episode that much. Hope to see more 80's Soul Train episodes from the O'Bryan "Soul Train Is Comin' " era.

[Edited 11/6/11 16:28pm]

KemiVA said:

Now Soul Train is showing Madonna's Who's That Girl video.

They've shown these other videos recently:

Out Of Touch ~ Hall & Oates

When The Going Gets Tough ~ Billy Ocean

Say Say Say ~ Mac & Jac

Dancing On The Ceiling ~ Lionel Richie

I'm more interested in the very early shows (circa 1971-75) than the 1980's. I saw Johnnie Taylor on a 1971 episode singing live with his band. One song was cut (in editing) because it was too long I guess. I wonder did Don save any footage not broadcast. I also wonder are there any pre-1971 episodes from when Soul Train was a local show.

Timmy84 said:

728huey said:

Bounce TV is a new over-the-air broadcast network for African Americans which is mostly being broadcast on the sub-digital channels of the primary network affiliates. Here's the webpage to see if Bounce TV is located in your area.

http://www.bouncetv.com/f...-area.html

That did NOT help.

right!

they put the question in their FAQ and the answer is: check with your cable provider, or scan the airwaves with your antenna, or check your cable/digital TV with the autoscanner feature on your TV.

[shyt, I already knew how to do that. Thanks for your help.]

KemiVA said:

vainandy said:

I saw the commercial and I'm not even going to watch that bullshit.

I recorded a great episode yesterday afternoon. It was a 1981 episode with Jerry Knight performing "Overnight Sensation" and A Taste of Honey performing "Sukiyaki". All the music for the dancers was great too. Well of course, 1981 was a great funky year.

I recorded another one this morning from 1983 but I'm going to record over it. Tavares was on there performing two songs I had never heard. That must have been a flop album of theirs. Kool and The Gang was on there performing "Joanna". The songs for the dancers were too crossover pop...."Thriller" by Michael Jackson...."Delirious" by Prince.....I mean, please, stuff like "1999", "D.M.S.R.", or "Lady Cab Driver" are cool for the show but "Delirious" is too pop sounding and isn't danceable at all. The dancers were hopping around like "American Bandstand" dancers to it rather than shakin' ass like "Soul Train" dancers. This is definitely the era I remember the magazines accusing Don Cornelius of trying to take the "soul" out of "Soul Train". The only good part was when Kool and The Gang performed "Tonight" but I'm not saving the episode just for one song.

I didn't even watch last night either. It was a Jody Watley episode from 1986. I love Jody Watley but the late 1980s had too many crossover songs so the rest of the show would have been dull. Also, BET was gaining popularity in the late 1980s so all those songs from that era have been absolutely worn out for decades on the video channels. I have no desire to see performances from artists that I have seen over and over and over on BET, MTV, and VH1 for decades. They need to stick to the early 1980s because those are the performances that people haven't seen in years. In the early 1980s, "Soul Train" was the only outlet for the R&B artists unless they were the tired crossover ones.

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[Edited 11/6/11 6:43am]

So true...

Right now I'm watching an 1981 episode featuring Patti Labelle and The Time. I'm especially fond of the late 70s-early 80s episodes because that's the Soul Train era I grew up watching first.

[Edited 11/6/11 14:55pm]

I saw The Time episode this afternoon. It's a great episode but I got pissed because I already have that one recorded. They showed it on WGN a few years ago.

KemiVA said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Rosie Perez gettin it. I hope they show some more from the late 80s and also go into the early 90s (sorry Vain. )

I switched back to watch a bit ago (nothing else good is on tv), saw a male dancer in an ALF mask and zebra print smoking jacket. What the huh??? Dancing to U Got The Look. Now Soul Train is showing Madonna's Who's That Girl video. So far not feeling this episode that much. Hope to see more 80's Soul Train episodes from the O'Bryan "Soul Train Is Comin' " era.

[Edited 11/6/11 16:28pm]

See what I mean. Every time I see a late 1980s episode, I feel like hollering.....

The Popppppppppppppppp Traaaaaaaaaaain!

TD3 said:

funkpill said:

Don't think Don would've allow him to perform in his bikini drawers

That would've been too wild

That's why P-Funk never appear

Now ya'll know Cornelius had a bug so far up ass, that wasn't never gonna happen.

So true I remember hearing that Don was so offended by Giorgio's performance in 1986 (he performed "Sex Appeal" with mannequins onstage!) that he refused to do the interview segment.

SoulAlive said:

TD3 said:

Now ya'll know Cornelius had a bug so far up ass, that wasn't never gonna happen.

So true I remember hearing that Don was so offended by Giorgio's performance in 1986 (he performed "Sex Appeal" with mannequins onstage!) that he refused to do the interview segment.

Don's a jerk and always has been.

vainandy said:

KemiVA said:

I switched back to watch a bit ago (nothing else good is on tv), saw a male dancer in an ALF mask and zebra print smoking jacket. What the huh??? Dancing to U Got The Look. Now Soul Train is showing Madonna's Who's That Girl video. So far not feeling this episode that much. Hope to see more 80's Soul Train episodes from the O'Bryan "Soul Train Is Comin' " era.

[Edited 11/6/11 16:28pm]

See what I mean. Every time I see a late 1980s episode, I feel like hollering.....

The Popppppppppppppppp Traaaaaaaaaaain!

I will admit though, to getting a kick out of seeing a young Rosie Perez dancing, as she and Cheryl Song (Asian lady with the long hair) were some of the few decent female dancers. I understand sex appeal sells, but through watching the later seasons of ST it's painfully obvious more and more female dancers were hired for their looks and not actual talent.

Can't believe how incredibly misguided Don was adding straight-up pop songs to the show in the mid 80s. I remember seeing one episode where a Huey Lewis and The News song, "Heart of Rock n' Roll" played. Whaa??

[Edited 11/7/11 5:59am]

KemiVA said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

KemiVA said:

Can't believe how incredibly misguided Don was adding straight-up pop songs to the show in the mid 80s. I remember seeing one episode where a Huey Lewis and The News song, "Heart of Rock n' Roll" played. Whaa??

This morning a English Pop group named ABC was on

I agree.I mean,it's one thing to play a "pop" song that has an R&B sound (like some of Hall & Oates songs,Madonna's early music,Culture Club,Duran Duran's "The Reflex",etc) but "The Heart Of Rock N' Roll" was a riduculous choice.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Colonal Abrams, Eric B and Rakim and ABC from late 87 is on right now. George Benson and Patti Austin from 81 on later in the evening.

I saw the opening this morning when I woke up. I knew when I heard that theme song (the remake of the TSOP theme song), that it was going to be a bunch of bullshit but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be that bad. As soon as I heard the guests announced, I turned the channel. I wanted to throw something at the TV. That was so horrible, it might as well have been a 1990s episode.

I want to see the George Benson/Patti Austin episode this evening if I get home from work in time.

KemiVA said:

vainandy said:

See what I mean. Every time I see a late 1980s episode, I feel like hollering.....

The Popppppppppppppppp Traaaaaaaaaaain!

I will admit though, to getting a kick out of seeing a young Rosie Perez dancing, as she and Cheryl Song (Asian lady with the long hair) were some of the few decent female dancers. I understand sex appeal sells, but through watching the later seasons of ST it's painfully obvious more and more female dancers were hired for their looks and not actual talent.

Can't believe how incredibly misguided Don was adding straight-up pop songs to the show in the mid 80s. I remember seeing one episode where a Huey Lewis and The News song, "Heart of Rock n' Roll" played. Whaa??

[Edited 11/7/11 5:59am]

I never liked Rosie's dancing. She appeared too stiff to me. To me, she danced like a white girl that had more rhythm than most white people but still wasn't as loose as a black person. As for Cheryl, I noticed on the late 1970s and early 1980s episodes on up to around 1981, she could dance. But beginning around 1982, she got kinda stiff too. I read in an interview that she said she took dance lessons so that may be the reason she later appeared stiff. I hate choreographed looking dancing. I like just plain old ass shaking and getting off to however you feel it and those black girls could absolutely throwdown on up until around 1982 or so and they became stiff too especially when they would come down the line.

We had a local show called "Black Gold" here in Jackson and those dancers never became stiff throughout the entire show when it began around 1972 or 1973 until it ended in the early 1990s. If you've ever seen youtube clips of a Detroit show called "The Scene", it was like a carbon copy of "Black Gold" except "Black Gold" was even better. Since "Soul Train" was national, I'm wondering if they purposely picked stiff dancers because it's obvious that Don was later trying to appeal to a pop audience.

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[Edited 11/7/11 6:50am]

vainandy said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Colonal Abrams, Eric B and Rakim and ABC from late 87 is on right now. George Benson and Patti Austin from 81 on later in the evening.

I saw the opening this morning when I woke up. I knew when I heard that theme song (the remake of the TSOP theme song), that it was going to be a bunch of bullshit but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be that bad. As soon as I heard the guests announced, I turned the channel. I wanted to throw something at the TV. That was so horrible, it might as well have been a 1990s episode.

I want to see the George Benson/Patti Austin episode this evening if I get home from work in time.

Not a Colonel fan.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

BounceTV ain't workin for me for some reason and Mo Money comes on 2nite.

Falso alarm, its back n and right on time for soul train. The Gap Band / Yarborough and Peple and another cat who's name just slipped my mind. Episode from 1983.

A belated thanks for this update from us Soul Train/

Bounce TV deprived people.

I expect that those 2 performers provided top quality performances.

I can't complain a heck of a lot since I was able to finally

watch an episode on Centric that I had not seen at least once in the past year.

On 11/6/11 Centric played the May 16, 1981 broadcast that featured

Patrice Rushen and the Sugar Hill Gang. Patrice Rushen is a great example

of extremely talented voice that easily deserved more pop success than she had.

Even though smooth jazz stations (when they were allowed to exist) and adult contemporary/easy listening stations in large cities have played "Forget Me Not" she had plenty of other songs

that deserved pop success. Any way, I am pleased that I was able to listen to her

when her 1984 LP was new. "Gotta Find It" and "Feels So Real" are definite treasures.

Her LP from 1986 was also quite good (I have it on CD) but I think the only song that got any

attention in Chicago was "Watch Out" and it wasn't played that much.

free2bfreeda said:

funkpill said:

Don't think Don would've allow him to perform in his bikini drawers

That would've been too wild

That's why P-Funk never appear

embolded and:

i remember very clearly that Don Cornelius was very consevative, and i know the "conservative don c." statement has been co-signed very often. i agree with funkpill. don would not have understood and (seemingly) did not understand prince's sexually bold presentation on stage.

but dick clark swooped prince up from the beginning. so it's a two edged sword in regard to why prince was not on soul train prior to 1994. (somewhere in there during the purple rain era, i bet prince refused to cow-tow to Don C., and refused any invites to perform on soul train.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Train excerpt:

Cornelius was relatively conservative in his musical tastes and was admittedly not a fan of the emerging hip hop genre. Even though he would feature rap artists on Soul Train frequently during the 1980s, he publicly would admit (to the artists' faces such as Kurtis Blow for example) that the genre was one that he did not understand; as rap continued to move further toward hardcore hip hop, Cornelius would admit to be frightened by the antics of groups such as Public Enemy.

Rosie Perez testified in a 2010 VH1 produced Soul Train documentary (Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America) that Cornelius also disliked seeing the Soul Train dancers perform sexually suggestive "East Coast" dance moves. Cornelius admittedly only had rap artists on the show because the genre was becoming popular among his African-American audience, though the decision alienated middle-aged, more affluent African-Americans like himself. This disconnect eventually led to Cornelius stepping down as host in the early 1990s and the show losing its influence.

^{so you know d. cornelius (with all due respect) would've faaa-reaked out if prince was on the show and performed computer blue on his show in it's original format.}

Lucky for us dedicated Soul Train fans there were always plenty of

independent thinkers that dance sexually suggestively in

each decade. If a particular episode had lame dances

it almost always got adequately sexy at the Soul Train line part of the show.

[Edited 11/9/11 20:53pm]

I didn't know Rose Royce was still around in the 1980's, and Chico DeBarge looks funny with hair.

They're dancing to Bruce Willis now.

vainandy said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Colonal Abrams, Eric B and Rakim and ABC from late 87 is on right now. George Benson and Patti Austin from 81 on later in the evening.

I saw the opening this morning when I woke up. I knew when I heard that theme song (the remake of the TSOP theme song), that it was going to be a bunch of bullshit but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be that bad. As soon as I heard the guests announced, I turned the channel. I wanted to throw something at the TV. That was so horrible, it might as well have been a 1990s episode.

I want to see the George Benson/Patti Austin episode this evening if I get home from work in time.

yeah, seems like current day jazz vocalist are far a few between. Patti Austin was/is a great vocalist. in the recca stowes in my area (back in the day) most of the stores held anextensive

in-store stock on the current j-vocalist.

one of my favs by P.A.

link: Quincy Jones ft Patti Austin - Razzamatazz (Slayd5000)

[Edited 11/11/11 15:24pm]

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Jeffrey Osborne and Midnight Star from 1982 is on now.

That one was great. The Audience went absolutely wild during the Midnight Star performance of "Freak-A-Zoid". The only good episode they played last week.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Heavy D & the Boyz,Mikki Howard and Lou Rawls from 1988.

Worst episode they've played so far. Monday mornings are already depressing enough but to hear some tired ass Miki Howard makes it even more depressing. Why, oh why the hell didn't I turn the channel instead of sitting there watching! I can't get that bullshit to stop playing in my head.

vainandy said:

Dire Straits?

MickyDolenz said: