By KEVIN CHILL HEARD

C&P Managing Editor

The dead body police found this morning on Mulholland Drive a little after 4 a.m. was an icon in every sense of the word. The Los Angeles PD suspect that Don Cornelius, the grand architect of “Soul Train,” shot himself to death this morning at his home.

Police responded to a call of shots fired at the Sherman Oaks, Calif., home of the 75 year-old Cornelius. The coroner at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center says Cornelius was pronounced dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In recent years it was said that Cornelius struggled with depression and other health problems, as well as a very public divorce that followed a ‘09 sentence of three years’ probation for spousal battery.

News reports will say that Cornelius was the creator of the longest running, first-run, nationally syndicated program in television history, but he and his brainchild was so much more than that. His self-titled “Hippest Trip in America,” ushered in a sub-culture of self-expression through music and dance not seen in the African American community. The dance show format had been popularized earlier by Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” but Don Cornelius’s soul brother cool and baritone swagger earned him an instant ghetto pass and massive street cred that left all others in his wake.

From 1970 to 2006 Cornelius and his train rode the tracks of Black music right through our home television sets and directly into iconic status. His program concluding catch phrase “Love, Peace and Soooul,” is a part of Americana. Who among us doesn’t know what a “Soul Train Line” is? Every time somebody breaks out and does the robot, or poplocks, a spin, or any fly dance move in front of a camera, it is in so many ways an ode to Don Cornelius. Even the late “King of Pop” owed much, a hefty percentage, of his dance stylings to Soul Train and its culture.

It is not even debatable that Michael Jackson’s most marketable move, the “moon walk,” was given it’s TV birth on Soul Train by Soul Train dancer Jeffery Daniels, who later became a member of the group Shalamar, with Jodi Watley and Akron Ohio native Howard Hewett.

Born on the south side of Chicago, Cornelius rose to become one of music’s true visionaries and a businessman of the highest order, among the likes of Motown’s Berry Gordy. What began in the Windy City, and then moving to the City of Angels, Cornelius’ brought forth efforts that were groundbreaking. What he created in Soul Train was truly a cultural phenomenon. It was no less than a collective consciousness that gave the world as we knew it a funky makeover.

The likes of Mr. Don Cornelius may never be seen this way again. Generations of kids who may not even know his name owe him a lifetime of gratitude, as do we all. While Soul Train exists in many manifestations to be seen and digested by the multitudes, the one man who believed in its need to exist and birthed it of his head like the mythological gods of ancient times is no longer among us. His story will be told in many different ways, by many different people, and with each mention of his name we will perhaps learn a little more about a true genius, that while he walked among us, may not have truly been or properly appreciated.

Check back with the Call & Post for developing news about the life and death of Don Cornelius.