The Hippest Trip in America by Nelson George

young, I thought, Well, if I do what they want me to do, I’ll end up just as unhappy as they are. So when they told me that that’s what I was going to be majoring in in college, it’s gonna be math or science, I said, No, no, it’s not. And I was a dance major in college.
    One of Song’s most unlikely reflections on her Soul Train years is that no dancers on the show ever asked her out, and no one ever asked her to dance when she went out. “Nobody did! Nobody!” she said. As hard as it is to imagine that the most famous Asian woman in black TV history was ignored by men, that’s Song’s story and she’s sticking to it. “Probably because I was Asian, but I remember going to clubs in Los Angeles, and they were mostly black, but that’s who I felt comfortable with. So I would end up sitting there the whole night all by myself. And so I was like, nobody ever asked me to dance. I don’t know if they were afraid, or I don’t know, but most of the times I would just end up sitting there. So I remember one day, Howard Hewitt, he was in Shalamar. He asked me to dance because he felt sorry for me. But that was like one of the few times I got to dance when I went out.”
    Gap Band lead singer (and notorious ladies’ man) Charlie Wilson has put it on record that he tried to “holler at” Song, as have some other entertainers who performed on Soul Train , but apparently she was oblivious.
    Whether Song was asked out or not, it’s clear that entertainers and their management were very aware of her. She helped the Commodores choreograph one of their tours and was cast in numerous 1980s videos, including Rick James’s “Super Freak” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”
    Watch closely and you can spot her in the opening diner sequence of that landmark video.
    Tyrone Proctor, bringing gay culture to the masses, and Cheryl Song, a nonblack face in a sea of Afros, were each in their own way iconic figures on Soul Train . Waacking-influenced moves are still employed by choreographers and found in twenty-first-century music videos from Lady Gaga, among others, while gifted Asian street dancers are now staples of our culture, from Gap commercials to competition shows like America’s Best Dance Crew . Though decades removed from their Soul Train appearances, the legacy of Proctor and Song flows on.

Chapter 5

TSOP
    THE SECOND—AND greatest— Soul Train theme song resulted from a brief collaboration between Don Cornelius and the premier R&B writing-producing team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. This pair began as independent producers in the 1960s, when they created hit singles for Jerry Butler, Wilson Pickett, and Joe Simon, among many. This catapulted the Philadelphia-based duo to the mantle of R&B’s top creative force. In 1971 Gamble and Huff made a deal with CBS Records to found Philadelphia International Records as a vehicle for funneling all their energy into acts on their own label.
    Together, and in collaboration with several exceptional staff writers (John Whitehead, Gene McFadden, Bunny Sigler, Cynthia Biggs, Dexter Wansel), PIR was a powerhouse that developed stars (the O’Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass) and enduring songs (“Wake Up Everybody,” “Love Train,” “For the Love of Money,” “Me and Mrs. Jones,” “Love Is the Message,” “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”) using a lush, intricate, rhythmically intense sound built around gospel-inspired singing and the talents of a remarkable team of session musicians.
    Labeled MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother), these players, anchored by guitarist Norman Harris, bassist Ronnie Baker, and drummer Earl Young, worked primarily out of the City of Brotherly Love’s Sigma Sound. Factoring in the more ballad-oriented songs of producer Thom Bell for the Spinners and the Stylistics, the music