“Soul Train,” one of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history, played a critical role in spreading the music of black America to the world, offering wide exposure to musicians like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson in the 1970s and ’80s._____
“Soul Train created an outlet for black artists that never would have been if it hadn’t been for Cornelius,” said Kenny Gamble, who with his partner, Leon Huff, created the Philly sound and wrote the theme song for the show. “It was a tremendous export from America to the world, that showed African-American life and the joy of music and dance, and it brought people together.”
Four-time Boston mayor Kevin H. White, 82, died a few days ago. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease in recent years:
A Democrat who ran as a reformer, Mr. White served from 1968 to 1984. For much of this period, Boston was torn by public outrage over court-ordered busing to desegregate its schools. Protests turned violent, and some school buses carrying black children were pelted with stones. In this roiling storm, Mr. White was widely seen as a stabilizing presence as he extended protection to the children and imposed order through a heightened police presence._____
On another occasion, after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Mayor White, as a way to head off violence in the streets, arranged for a James Brown concert to be shown on public television.
Actor Robert Hegyes, 60, best known for his role in the seventies sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, of cardiac arrest:
In later years he acted in regional theater and had guest roles on shows including “CHiPs,” “L.A. Heat” and “Diagnosis Murder.”_____
With fitting symmetry, Mr. Hegyes also taught for several years at Venice High School in California. As he told interviewers afterward, he had a reputation for accepting no absence excuses of any kind.
Famous boxing trainer Angelo Dundee, 90, best known for training Muhammad Ali, died today in Tampa, Florida:
A master motivator and clever corner man, Dundee was regarded as one of the sport's great ambassadors. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994 after a career that spanned six decades, training 15 world champions, including Leonard, George Foreman, Carmen Basilio and Jose Napoles.
But he will always be linked to Ali as one of the most successful fighter-trainer relationships in boxing history, helping Ali become the first to win the heavyweight title three times. The pair would travel around the world for fights to such obscure places as Ali's October 1974 bout in Zaire against Foreman dubbed "The Rumble in the Jungle," and Ali's third fight against Joe Frazier in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, called by promoters as the "Thrilla in Manila."
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