Although, it is heartfelt about Don Cornelius passing at this time, he has left archives or should I say a biography of the beginning of Soul Train up til the reruns shown on Cable’s. Chicago has nothing but love for you, and most African American believe your success is our success!

Take you Rest Don,

Love the Wentworth Family

Thank you for your heartfelt tribute to Don Cornelius. I discovered it while doing a Twitter search on Don just now. As a little boy in the 1970′s, I and my family gathered around the TV every Saturday at 2pm to watch “Soul Train” on KTTV (today’s Fox 11) to dance along with The Soul Train Line and watch the legends and newcomers in soul music. It was my very first exposure to black culture, and I’m happy to say it was a positive one.

I was too young to know who you were as one of the dancers or later as part of Shalamar, but I learned of it later in the 80′s as your group took off in the mainstream pop world. Back in the 90′s I saw a rerun of “American Bandstand” from 1980 on VH-1 where you and Shalamar performed “Second Time Around”, my all-time favorite Shalamar song, and Dick Clark reminisced that his producers and even the “Bandstand” dancers were surprised he’d let a group from a rival dance show be a guest. His answer was “Of course we’ll put them on.” Even as a child, I always thought the rivalry between “Soul Train” and “Bandstand” was ridiculous because I loved both shows and “Soul Train” taught me that music transcends all races and ethnicities. I will admit though that “Soul Train” always had the better dancers.

It is truly a blessing that Don played an important role in your career, and it’s an example of how he gave a helping hand to countless black dancers, singers and bands throughout “Soul Train’s” historic 36-year run. At a time when positive images of African Americans were lacking on television, Don came along at just the right time and gave us a legacy we all can be proud of. If anything positive can come out of this tragedy of Don’s passing, I have read some internet chatter that Magic Johnson and Soul Train Holdings may now be further motivated to do a full-out revival of “Soul Train” on first-run TV, scoping out positive musical talent like it was known for in the 70′s.

Again, thank you for sharing and I offer my prayers and condolences to Tony Cornelius and the entire family at this difficult time.

Love, Peace and Soul,
Rich Rodriguez
Diamond Bar, CA
(2 Cor 1:3-5)