"Good GAWD, y'all!"
Yesterday (Monday, 6 February), the NPR programme Soundcheck, produced by WNYC in, duh, NYC, had a remembrance of Soul Train creator/producer/host Don Cornelius, who died last week at the age of 75, an apparent suicide.
Growing up, I would peep at Soul Train now and again, largely due to the half-dressed, jigglin' an' wrigglin' lay-teez the arresting production values (*coughs*) and the music, which I probably didn't appreciate as much as I should've back then. As it must have for thousands (millions?) of others, the show's theme song (with Mr. Cornelius's oft-imitated steam whistle cry of "The SOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUULLLL Train!" rattling the window panes) played at odd moments, unbidden, in my head, usually causing me to break out in at least a Mona Lisa smile.
However, one bit of trivia related in the piece slapped me across the kisser like a flailing flounder: Elton John sang "Bennie and the Jets" (from his 1973 double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road) on Soul Train.
No, seriously: they played a clip from his appearance.
Now I can understand why Mr. Cornelius would book, say, David Bowie on Soul Train to perform "Fame" (which was mentioned in the segment); skipping ahead a few years, I can even understand why Peter Gabriel might cop an invite to Soul Train to sing "Shock the Monkey."
However. Elton-frakkin'-John, who I would in no way shape or form even remotely consider to be an exemplar of "blue-eyed soul" (as the Thin White Duke was deemed to be in his Young Americans days), appearing on Soul Train, constitutes to my mind an act of deliberate, maliciously whimsical sabotage.
Elton John. What? Andy Kim was busy that day?
At least the future Sir Elton had the good sense not to perform "Jamaican Jerk-Off" (also from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road). Sheeeeeesh.
Growing up, I would peep at Soul Train now and again, largely due to the half-dressed, jigglin' an' wrigglin' lay-teez the arresting production values (*coughs*) and the music, which I probably didn't appreciate as much as I should've back then. As it must have for thousands (millions?) of others, the show's theme song (with Mr. Cornelius's oft-imitated steam whistle cry of "The SOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUULLLL Train!" rattling the window panes) played at odd moments, unbidden, in my head, usually causing me to break out in at least a Mona Lisa smile.
However, one bit of trivia related in the piece slapped me across the kisser like a flailing flounder: Elton John sang "Bennie and the Jets" (from his 1973 double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road) on Soul Train.
No, seriously: they played a clip from his appearance.
Now I can understand why Mr. Cornelius would book, say, David Bowie on Soul Train to perform "Fame" (which was mentioned in the segment); skipping ahead a few years, I can even understand why Peter Gabriel might cop an invite to Soul Train to sing "Shock the Monkey."
However. Elton-frakkin'-John, who I would in no way shape or form even remotely consider to be an exemplar of "blue-eyed soul" (as the Thin White Duke was deemed to be in his Young Americans days), appearing on Soul Train, constitutes to my mind an act of deliberate, maliciously whimsical sabotage.
Elton John. What? Andy Kim was busy that day?
At least the future Sir Elton had the good sense not to perform "Jamaican Jerk-Off" (also from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road). Sheeeeeesh.