Philly now holds record for longest ‘Soul Train’ line

    Representatives from 100.3 WRNB-FM radio presented Mayor Michael Nutter with the Guinness World Record certificate for the world’s largest Soul Train line Wednesday morning at City Hall.  The previous record of 211 set in Beverly Hills, Calif., was beat last February in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art with 291 participants.

     

    Mayor Nutter recalled spending most of the chilly day in meetings at City Hall, and that his staff encouraged him to go to the event and have a good time, but warned, “the one thing you cannot do is go down that line!” 

    The Mayor didn’t take the advice of his staff that day and was the first to go down the line, which took about two and a half hours to complete. 

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    “We have a lot of challenges in this city, in the midst of that we need to take some time to celebrate Philadelphia love, peace and soul,” he said.

    Last February Manwell Glenn, a host on Philadelphia Radio One, was reflecting on the death of Soul Train host Don Cornelius. So he googled “Soul Train World Record.”  From there, he contacted WRNB and put out a call for dancers to come to the Art Museum steps.  The rest is history.

    Glenn spoke of Soul Train’s Philadelphia connection-its most popular theme song, “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),”” was composed by Gamble and Huff in the city.  “We’re willing to defend this title,” said Glenn of any city who might try to break the record, “it belongs in Philadelphia.”

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