'SOOOOOOUUUUUUULLL TRAAAAAIN!' Voice Suing Paramount Over Back Residuals

[Mark Jeffries]

Back in 1971, Don Cornelius, then a DJ for Chicago's legendary Black radio station WVON, asked fellow DJ Joe "Youngblood" Cobb to record an opening for his new local TV show. Cobb's cry of "The SOOOOOOOUUUUUULLLLL TRAAAAIN!" was heard on the local show on WCIU and when the show became a national program and ran for 45 years. Cobb, now 80 and long out of radio but running a popcorn store in Little Rock, got residuals for that recording during the original run, but he says that he gets nothing from the DVDs, repeats and ringtones ever since Cornelius' estate sold the rights to Magic Johnson in 2012 and  Johnson sold the rights to BET in 2016, is now suing Paramount Global and two subsidiaries (one of them BET) for $75,000 in unpaid residuals:

https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-voice-behind-soul-train-files-federal-lawsuit/8213df03-3bce-45dc-8415-e305250b700f?utm_source=Newsletter_Daily-Rundown-Non-Member&utm_medium=WBEZEmail&utm_campaign=Daily_Newsletter_Daily-Rundown_Sponsored_20240129&utm_content=1%2F29%2F2024&DE=WBEZEmail