The Hippest Trip in America (11 page)

The Electric Boogaloos began building a rep out in Long Beach at a recreation center known as the Hutch and a teen party called Noah's Ark. “Prior to poppin', everybody was just locking,” Dane recalled. “When Sam came to Long Beach with his new style, it was almost like a gunfighter coming into town, and one by one he started turning out all the dancers. They would do their little thing and Sam would watch them. Sam would just—‘Bam, bam, bam.' It was just like you're out of there. Quite a few of them totally just stopped dancing, period.”

The crew, being naive and young (sixteen, seventeen years old), figured the best way to get discovered was to go dance on street corners on Hollywood Boulevard. The old Hollywood legend that movie siren Lana Turner was discovered at a lunch counter was very much alive in the imaginations of these young men. Today they'd post a YouTube video. Back in the 1970s, you had to find a way to catch someone's eye.

So the Electric Boogaloos hopped on a bus from Long Beach to downtown and then transferred to another bus, expecting to end up on the corner of Hollywood and Vine but ending up way across town in East LA. Instead of risking another bus mishap, they walked halfway across the city to Sunset and Doheny, and all along the way, “every time we saw a limo—it could have been a limo coming from a funeral or going to a prom—we would get on the corner and we would just start dancing,” said Pete.

They were hanging by the bus stop at Sunset when a female dancer spotted them, came over, and asked them to explain some of their moves. Impressed, she passed their number to someone hiring dancers for shows at casino hotels in Lake Tahoe. The Electric Boogaloos got an audition and, like most LA street dancers of the era, were wearing gear that resembled that of the Lockers. The casting director's attitude was, according to Pete, “Oh, more lockers. I don't need more lockers for the show.” But after watching them pop and boogaloo, the guys were hired to perform in Nevada for two months.

Everyone who spotted the Electric Boogaloos was immediately taken by their moves and either wanted to watch them or learn them. Quickly the popping style started to be adopted. New adherents added their own variations. An Electric Boogaloo member, Creepin' Sid, developed a move called the backslide. It looked like a man walking slowly backwards, defying physics and common sense. It was much admired and imitated by other dancers, though its mainstream debut as the moonwalk was years away.

Although their show-business career was off to an auspicious start, one form of validation the Electric Boogaloos sought was a chance to dance on
Soul Train
. “When we became a group, we said we haven't made it yet until we perform on
Soul Train
,” said Pete. “That was true of any dancer coming up.” Various members of the crew had auditioned for the show before and had been turned down.

The Electric Boogaloos' invitation to appear on the show resulted from the influence of popping. It had spread from the Bay Area to Long Beach and throughout Southern California. Two of
Soul Train
's most popular dancers, Cash Cool and the Pop Along Kid—also known as Jeffrey Daniel—did a featured dance performance on the show that gave their interpretation of popping. Electric Boogaloo members Popin' Pete and Robot Dane were home watching the performance. When Cornelius asked the dancers about their moves, Cash Cool and Daniel told Cornelius this new style of movement was created by the Electric Boogaloos. Cornelius then turned to the camera and announced he'd soon be having the dance crew on the show.

Electric Boogaloo member Dane immediately got on the phone to
Soul Train
's production office. “They were like, ‘Oh my God, so happy you guys called.' They didn't really have a contact on us, and then no one had ever really asked us about trying to be on
Soul Train
. They had us come in and it was, like, wild.”

Electric Boogaloo member Boozer said of the first show, “You have to remember when we performed on
Soul Train
the first time, Don was just going off word of mouth. He had never seen us perform. He had never seen a tape of us. Nothing. He had just seen what Jeff and Cash Cool did, and he had heard our name, but he had never seen us perform. So he pretty much booked us sight unseen.”

The Electric Boogaloos would appear two times on
Soul Train
. In that first appearance, they each wore matching bright-colored suits (they called them skittle suits). Moreover, Cornelius would tell them something they'd later consider prophetic. Dane recalled, “Don said, ‘You know what, I'm gonna give these guys credit for what they're doing before someone else comes along and tries to take credit for it and make a lot of money off it.' ”

Cornelius spoke again about the group's impact years later, though he got some of the details wrong.

Cornelius:
Well, the first time we saw the moonwalk were some kids who called themselves Electric Boogaloo. And we got a tip that this was something very hot and very beautiful to see, and that we should try to get them on
Soul Train,
and we did. That is the first time that America—not just us, not just
Soul Train
—that
America
got exposed to the moonwalk. Now, anybody else who does the moonwalk, they learned most of it from Electric Boogaloo.

In 1983 Michael Jackson made a historic appearance on NBC's broadcast of
Motown 25,
a prime-time celebration of Berry Gordy's legendary record label. Though the show was packed with stars, it was Michael Jackson's performance of a dance the media labeled “the moonwalk” that was easily the evening's highlight. What few people know is the dance was created not by the musical superstar but out of the Electric Boogaloos. “What they call the moonwalk is not the moonwalk,” Dane said. “It's the backslide. You know it's erroneous. The moonwalk actually looks like you're walking on the moon, like Marcel Marceau . . . Backsliding is you're going backwards. But we debuted that on
Soul Train
in 1979. When Michael does it on
Motown 25,
all of the sudden it was the moonwalk. So again, it was so important for us to do
Soul Train
because when you look at that and the Internet now, no one can say, ‘Okay, you didn't do this.' That
Soul Train
performance sealed our fate in history.”

The moves that the Electric Boogaloos introduced on
Soul Train
and elsewhere would inform the culture known as hip-hop, fuel several more quaint-looking eighties dance movies starring members of the crew, and allow the group to continue performing globally to this day.

 

DANCER PROFILE:
Reggie Thornton

 

Reggie Thornton had two very different
Soul Train
tenures, separated by a decade and two cities. Raised in Gary, Indiana, during the early 1970s, Reggie was part of that original group that danced on the show during its early days in Chicago. Once
Soul Train
moved west, Thornton watched enviously from Indiana as the once-local show became a national phenomenon.

Thornton:
I used to watch [the LA show], seeing all the beautiful Afros, the beautiful people doing the beautiful dances, and the women and everyone looking great. I couldn't wait to come out here. I was hoping that Don Cornelius would send for us. But it never did happen. I just longed to get here. But it wasn't that easy. When I got out to California on July 15, 1980, I found out they were doing a taping of
Soul Train
. I heard they brought extra clothes, and you had to stand in line. So I found out they were taping at Metromedia studio in Hollywood. I had my suitcase in my hand as the gates opened, and I walked through the gates. I noticed everyone was telling this gentleman, “Hey, how are you, Chuck?” Everybody's speaking to Chuck. So as I got in line, and I spoke to Chuck. I said, “Hey, how are you, Chuck?” And Chuck said, “Hey, who are you? Stand over here.” So I stood over to the side. After a while everybody got in, and the gates closed, and I said, “Wait a minute! I'm supposed to be in there.” Chuck said, “Well, this is a closed set.” And I said, “I'm a Soul Trainer. I'm from Chicago!”

Don Cornelius had given us these cards that said “Soul Train Gang—Permanent Member of the Soul Train Gang.” I showed Chuck this card, and he said, “What's that?” I said, “That's from Don Cornelius. He gave me this card and said I was a permanent
Soul Train
dancer.” He said, “I've never seen that before,” and went in the studio, and he closed the door. So maybe like a half hour went by, and I was so desperate to get in there I climbed the fence and I went inside the studio.

In the studio I saw all these people that I admired on television for all these years. I just thought it was the greatest thing. So I sat down for a while, and some song came on and the music got to me and I started dancing. All of a sudden Chuck Johnson noticed me out there. He said, “Excuse me. Can you come over here? What are you doing here?” I said, “I'm a
Soul Train
dancer from Chicago. I showed you my card.” He told me to take a seat. I sat down and just watched everybody dance. I was excited and so full of anguish because I couldn't dance. I was just frustrated.

Toward the end of the day, Chuck let me come on the floor and start dancing. The next day, which was a Sunday, he let me in and I went to the back. I started dancing and they started doing the
Soul Train
line. That's the last thing they do at the end of the day. So when everyone lined up to be picked for the
Soul Train
line, Chuck saw me in the line, and he said, “No, you can't go down the
Soul Train
line.” All the dancers, they were saying, “Oh, Chuck! He can dance. He can dance. Let him go down the line.” Finally he let me have a shot. So I went down the
Soul Train
line, and they loved it. After that I came running down the
Soul Train
line every week.

While Thornton was a capable dancer, his greatest contribution to
Soul Train
lore involved a nondancing encounter with a pop diva. Episode #382 of the 1981–82 season was a tribute to Diana Ross timed to the release of her debut album on RCA Records,
Why Do Fools Fall in Love,
her first release after leaving Motown.

Thornton:
I always thought that Diana Ross was very sexy. I don't know whether she was a cougar or not, whether she was into young men or not. I always thought she was sexy as a young child. So they did a segment where they had a question-and-answer period. And I had a question for Diana, and my question was, “Diana, everybody who knows me knows that you're my favorite star, and there's one thing I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to kiss you on nationwide television, can I have that opportunity?” And she said, “Oh, yes, you can do it.” So I went up to Diana and I kissed her, and she said, “Oh, yeah,” and she hugs real tight too. That was her response. And when all my friends back home saw that, they said, I can't believe you kissed Diana Ross!

Chapter 8
Whites on
Soul Train

DON CORNELIUS
was at a posh private party in Los Angeles in the 1970s when he ran into Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath. Broadway Joe, who'd won a Super Bowl with the New York Jets, was ending his career as a gimpy-kneed veteran with the then Los Angeles Rams.

When Namath was introduced to Cornelius, the quarterback said, “Yeah, I know Don Cornelius. He does the
Soul Train
show”—which is a testament to how well-known the show was among white Americans. 

But then the conversation took a turn. “How come you don't let white people on that show?” he asked Don, who replied, “Well, Joe, we've always had white people on the show.”

Namath was not convinced. “No, I've seen your show, you don't allow white people to be on the show.” 

By this time, the quarterback was getting a little aggressive with Don and, weak-kneed or not, Namath was still a six-foot-three pro athlete whom Don didn't want any trouble with. So Don asked, “Well, Joe, do you watch
Soul Train
every week?” Namath told him he didn't. Now Don had him.

“Well,” Don replied, “the week you don't watch it, that's when the white people are there.” Before Namath could reply, Don had moved on. This comical exchange reflected the perception that many people, mostly white, thought that
Soul Train
consciously excluded whites from the premises. While white dancers were never excluded from the show, none became as famous as Asian dancer Cheryl Song. Don could be very expansive on white dancers and the stereotype about their absence of rhythm.

 

Cornelius:
For as long as I can remember, there was always at least a few white dancers, all of whom [could] always hold their own with the black dancers. I'm not a believer in the myth that says white people cannot dance because it's been proven to me over the years that they can. The difference is we, as black people, start dancing at age two. Our parents are saying, “Come on, baby, let's do this.” You start dancing as a toddler, and you learn that you must keep time with the music or else your parents will challenge you to do so. A lot of white people don't get that kind of coaching. We've experienced situations where a white dancer was not keeping time with the music, and we explained to them that this is a requirement: “You must keep time with the music.” They kept time just like anybody else, but if nobody ever told them to do it, then very often they couldn't.

 

Correcting a lack of rhythm may not be as easy as Don suggests, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Any white kid who'd made it onto the floor at
Soul Train
must have been capable of keeping a beat. Truth is, no white dancer made an deep impact on the show, but the appearances of white musicians, particularly in
Soul Train
's early years, live large in the show's mythology.

There is a trio of white performers on
Soul Train
that are usually regarded as “pioneers.” Gino Vannelli, Elton John, and David Bowie are not only white but non-American: Vannelli is Canadian, John and Bowie both British. Around 1975, the Average White Band, almost all Scots, also made a memorable appearance.

The first white American acts on
Soul Train
were instrumentalists, not singers, which probably explains why they aren't well remembered. Dennis Coffey, once a top session guitarist for Motown in Detroit, began recording R&B instrumental tracks and had a million-selling single, the driving “Scorpio,” in 1971. (The B-side, “Sad Angel,” is a personal favorite of mine.) Coffey performed “Scorpio” on episode #15.

The second white collective on the show was the Bay Area jazz-rock collective Tower of Power, fronted by black vocalist Lenny Williams. Tower of Power taped episode #79 during the 1973–74 season, sharing the broadcast with two vocal groups, the Pointer Sisters and Tavares.

Band leader and tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo recalled that appearance with great affection.

 

Castillo:
We had hit a place in our career where we were on the charts and getting really popular. We had done
Midnight Special,
In Concert,
and
New Year's Rockin' Eve
—all those kinds of shows. But to be on
Soul Train
was really the thing. Tower of Power was first and foremost a soul band. We come from the Oakland side of the Bay, where there are all kinds of people. We never thought about being a white soul band. We're in front of the Soul Train Gang, and Don Cornelius is towering over us and asking these questions in that big, deep voice . . . But as soon as we hit that downbeat, man we were right in there . . . We hit a real hard groove, and I remember we did this one song called “To Say the Least, You're the Most.” He came down off the stage, and my singer Lenny Williams was singing, and the horn section was following him, and we cut through the Soul Train Gang and walked right out of the studio. That's how it faded to commercial. It was really cool.

 

While Tower of Power's appearance is now somewhat obscure, Gino Vannelli's performance on episode #128 in February 1975 is a signature moment for so many viewers. The Canadian is kind of the Jackie Robinson of white singers when it comes to
Soul Train
. He arrived on the show from the unlikely soul music mecca of Montreal, Canada.

Vannelli claimed that “the club scene in Montreal in the mid-sixties, you would think you were in Harlem. You know it was really deep R&B. They had the esoteric Isaac Hayes records when they weren't out yet. All those seven-minute records. Everybody wanted to emulate that. Everyone was listening to Little Anthony, and all those groups you know in Montreal in the mid-sixties. I was lucky I was brought up with that, and I had that sense of rhythm and that sense of, well, American soul that you didn't find anywhere else but America. It was a real strong influence on my life.”

That influence was also reflected in Vannelli's hair. Though he was Italian, Vannelli sported a circular Afro as recognizable as his resonant vocals.

The handsome singer with the emotive tenor voice signed in 1973 with A&M Records, one of the classier boutique labels of the era, which was owned by Jerry Moss and trumpeter Herb Alpert, who himself had a number of hits on his own in the early 1960s (“The Lonely Bull,” “A Taste of Honey”). The Los Angeles–based label had a strong roster that included Billy Preston, the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, Quincy Jones, and later the Brothers Johnson and the Police.

 

Tower of Power was the first predominantly white act to play on
Soul Train
.

 

Vannelli remembered: “Herb is one of the original guys who shot from the hip, because he just intuitively knew what he liked and what a lot of other people would like. He didn't have to go through committees and put you through the hoops that a lot of record companies would today. He just sort of heard and said, Yeah.”

At A&M, Vannelli was very much a small fish in a big pond. His first album,
Crazy Life
, didn't do well, but the label gave him a second shot. While recording his
Powerful People
album, Vannelli was living at a hotel on Sunset Boulevard called the Hallmark. Sitting in his hotel room, he heard someone singing a familiar melody outside by the pool. It was a song from his debut album.

 

Vannelli:
So I went out into the pool area, and there was Stevie Wonder singing “Granny Goodbye,” from the
Crazy Life
album. His brother introduced me to him, and of course I was in awe, and we kind of struck up a relationship, and Stevie asked me to play on his tour. He just thought it would be right. I did seven or eight concerts with Stevie, and it really changed my life and changed my career. I thought all musics were valid, and I just so happened to love R&B. I didn't want to be one of those white guys trying to have a black sound, because [then] I always sound so loungy and stupid. But I would always let that kind of music affect my music. Rhythmically, perhaps harmonically. I really wanted to mix a little R&B with an Italian bel canto style of singing. It took me a little while to develop, but that's what came out. Your style is nothing more than your limitations. I remember having a conversation with Stevie: “Are you sure you really want me to do this? It could be my death, and maybe it's not such a good thing for you.” He said, “I think the audience will like you.” So we opened in Cincinnati, and I was just scared. My knees knocking. But everywhere we went we were getting standing ovations. Stevie would come onstage and say wasn't it great, and you can buy his record, and da-da-da. I was amazed with that. And within a few months, we did
Soul Train,
and that's when I could go out on my own. So it was a life-turning, or at least a career-turning, event for me. And the fact that I could play to such an integrated audience at that time—I don't think many people were doing that. Maybe the hair helped a little bit. The 'fro was a big thing in those days.

 

It's a little unclear how Vannelli was booked on the show. Don told VH1 that Vannelli's folks asked for a shot, while the singer suggests that
Soul Train
invited him on. No matter who made the first move, opening for Stevie Wonder is probably what put the relatively obscure Vannelli on the show's radar.

 

Vannelli:
For me it wasn't a cultural phenomenon or anything like that until later. It was just a show, and they said you'll be the first white guy on the show. I said, Okay, yeah, I'll do it. Is it good for ratings? Is it good. Can I get further ahead? They said, Yeah, yeah, you can just do it. I didn't want to lip-synch the record. It was almost a live performance. We went back into the studio and we tweaked things and left some things out so we could perform to [the track] live. The conversation with Don was very amicable, but for me it wasn't this cultural revelation until maybe a couple years later when people started saying, “You know, you're the first white person on
Soul Train
.” I said, “Really? Does it mean something?” Of course it meant something if I could cross those boundaries. Because in the coming years, right after
Soul Train
, my audiences were—I wouldn't say predominantly, but at least 50 percent black. Every time I went to play Atlanta and Dallas and Chicago and Pittsburgh, it was very—a very mixed audience, but I would say at least 40 or 50 percent black. I would say it had some impact.

 

Vannelli, like many folks on first meeting Cornelius, was a little unsure how to relate to the imposing TV host. “You know at first, it was a little bit stiff relationship, because I think he wanted to say the right things,” said the singer, “and I wanted to say the right things. As time wore on, we kind of got a little closer, and I remember—this is a long time ago—I remember I asked him, ‘Why did you invite me on the show? I'm obviously not a black artist.' He said, ‘Well, I consider you off-white.' ”

Unlike Vannelli, who was just starting his career, the next two white performers on
Soul Train
were already huge pop stars. By 1971 Elton John was a hit-making machine and the first artist since the Beatles to have four albums in the Billboard Top Ten simultaneously. John was in the middle of an incredible run of success in which he'd have seven consecutive No. 1 albums. He had an outrageous sense of visual humor, reflected in his hundreds of pairs of glasses (some with windshield wipers) and his pianos.

David Bowie was a rock icon who'd built his reputation with hooky rock singles and an ever-shifting stage persona. He'd been a star of the glitter rock movement that emphasized sexual ambiguity, rocking guitar riffs, and flamboyant stage shows. Way before rappers adopted personas who donned different identities, he led the way by being first Ziggy Stardust and later the Thin White Duke. Each time, he also altered his musical direction.

Both Elton John and David Bowie were huge figures in the very white world of pop and rock radio, and both asked to be on
Soul Train
.

“This wasn't salesmanship on our part with Elton John or David Bowie. We didn't pursue that,” Don said. “They just called up one day, and it was like, Elton John wants to do
Soul Train
, and we were like, Fine! It just worked out where they were admiring something about what we were doing and decided that, being the free spirits that they were, there's no reason why we're not doing this. It ushered in another kind of growth period when major white recording stars elected themselves to do
Soul Train
.”

Elton John was very much a pop artist. He, along with his lyricist and writing partner Bernie Taupin, wrote tunes in any style (hard rock, English music hall, folk, country, honky-tonk) while also anchoring them with vibrant melodies. R&B was not their strong suit, although they would compose a fun tribute to the Philly sound, “Philadelphia Freedom,” that John performed on
Soul Train
.