*Joe Cobb, the man behind the signature “Soooooooul Train” call out heard at the introduction to the show, is taking legal action over royalties.
The 80-year-old Chicago native is suing for $75,000 in back royalties, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Cobb was 22 when he first met “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius at the Black radio station WVON in the 1960s. Cornelius launched “Soul Train” in 1971, and at the time, Cobb voiced the now-famous “Soooooooul Train” scream heard at the start of the TV dance show.
“I was just pranking,” Cobb told The Chicago Sun-Times, but Cornelius liked it and had Cobb introduce “Soul Train, which ran from 1971 to 2006. Cornelius died in 2012 at age 75.
As The Sun-Times reports, Cobb’s introduction “can be heard in DVD box sets, syndicated reruns and ringtones,” the publication writes, but Cobb says in the lawsuit that he is not being compensated. His royalty checks stopped in 2008.
Paramount Global, CBS Entertainment, and Black Entertainment Television (BET) own the “Soul Train” rights, and Cobb is suing the networks for continued royalties.
In the 1960s, Cobb was a member of the Screen Actors Guild (now called SAG-AFTRA), but he parted ways with the union after Cornelius sold the rights to “Soul Train.” Cobb’s lawsuit says SAG-AFTRA informed him it has no record of his work.
“As described by Don Cornelius himself, I am the voice of ‘Soul Train,’ ” Cobb says. “It’s like I never existed. And, not only that, even my history in broadcasting, those 40 years I spent in Chicago, there’s no record of anything there, nothing.”
Cobb’s lawyer has tried to settle this matter for several years without success.
“This lawsuit seeks to vindicate Mr. Cobb’s rights and to ensure he is compensated for his valuable contributions to Black American and American popular culture,” the suit says, per The Chicago Sun-Times.
READ MORE: When Dick Clark Tried to Derail ‘Soul Train’ with Knockoff ‘Soul Unlimited’ | EUR VIDEO THROWBACK
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