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Don Cornelius found dead


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‘Soul Train’ creator Don Cornelius was found dead in his California home this morning.

According to the Los Angeles Times, police arrived at Cornelius’ Sherman Oaks home around 4am where he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 75.

A radio news announcer by trade, Cornelius began moonlighting at Wciu-tv, and wanted to create an African American version of American Bandstand, Dick Clark's influential music show, with live dancing five days a week. On August 17, 1970, the first episode of Soul Train premiered on the station, and by the next year, it was being syndicated in other markets. The show became one of the longest-running shows of its kind, airing from 1971 through 2006. Cornelius held down the hosting duties for most of that run, before stepping down in 1993.

Cornelius told the Los Angeles Times recently that there were early plans to create a movie based on the franchise. "We've been in discussions with several people about getting a movie off the ground," he said. "It wouldn't be the 'Soul Train' dance show, it would be more of a biographical look at the project. It's going to be about some of the things that really happened on the show."

In 2008, Cornelius was arrested and charged with spousal battery and dissuading a witness from making a police report, and assault with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to three years probation.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni21978669/

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RIP Don Cornelius.

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It hurt my heart when I heard the news earlier today. I didn't watch Soul Train religiously until the 90's so I only caught his regular hosting duties the first few years I watched it, not that I didn't occasionally stumble upon it in the 80's. He truly is a legend in music (without being all that musical). If Soul Train wasn't airing at 1 and morning and if the popular side of urban music hadn't gone to crap, it'd probably still be airing.

It's hard to believe he would take his own life, though I know he had rather extreme health issues and a bitter divorce over the last few years. God have mercy on his soul and may his legacy keep on. If it wasn't for him and his vision, R-N-B, Soul, and Hip-Hop would have never become as big as their are and were in the past.

Love...Peace and ...Soul

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Lately I've been reminiscing on all the great things that me and my parents have enjoyed together over the years since my papa's been sick to keep a positive feeling going and "Soul Train" definately comes to mind, it bridged the gap between soul, funk, and hip hop, music is the bond for my family, when I was growing up papa would play his James Brown and Kool and the Gang, mama would play Marvin Gaye and Barry White, and I'd play LL Cool J and JJFP, and we all enjoyed each other's music, I told my parents many times when I first started writing rhymes in the early 2000s that I wanted to perform on "Soul Train" one day but with the state of the music industry and the way internet killed the TV star a lot of that quality programming died off, Rest In Peace Don Cornelius, peace love and soul baby!!! On another note "Soul Train" first came on the air in the early 1970s around the time my papa first came to America from Haiti

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i woke up this morning and i was thinking about don cornelius that died because my family loves "Soul Train" like i said in my post and i was thinking about this song by Guy "Long Gone" which one of the members Teddy Riley(another Teddy like me and papa who shares the same birthday like my papa which is October 8th, that's something how god works)sings on that track and dedicates to all of friends, family, and entertainers that died, i sang that song on my voice recorder this morning, here's the song from youtube if you never heard it, I always think of this when somebody I care about leaves us:

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  • 3 weeks later...

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