(Evelyn "Love Come Down") - [Myron] I'm Myron Montgomery. I was a Soul Train
dancer from 1976 to 1995. ♪ Baby you make my love come down ♪ ♪ Ooh you make my love come down ♪ ♪ Make it come all the way down ♪ I was born and raised in
Los Angeles, California. I grew up in Baldwin Hills, and I attended Serra
High School in Gardena. I've always been a natural dancer, but I'm a trained dancer as well. I remember being as young as like 13 or 14 being in front of the TV
mesmerized with James Brown. I liked the way he moved, and that kind of gave me my inspiration. I will always admire those other dancers that came before me. I would look up to people
like Jody and Jeffrey, and Sharon and Tyrone, and Jermaine Stewart and Sheri Byers. I would always watch the show for them, and they always had great moves. (funk music) How I got on Soul Train was, I actually, at the time I was on it in 1976, you had to audition. It was really weird I remember because obviously, back then in the '70s, there was no Google. So how do you find it? And they didn't really
have a listed number. So I was watching TV one day and I saw my next door neighbor's
granddaughter on the show. When I saw that, I lost my mind. I asked her the information, and then she gave me the information and referred me to Pam Brown, who was a floor coordinator. And they were having
auditions at Menlo Park at the recreation center. And I was told that you
have to come as a duo, you have to have a killer dance partner. And I guess I kind of
made the wrong choice, I had to audition twice because the first time I didn't make it, I brought a very attractive partner, but she didn't dance that well. They actually told me that. They said, "If your
partner was more like you, we could do this." So I was on a search to find
a really killer partner, and I went to a dance one
night at Dorsey High School, a friend invited me, and there was a girl
there, Janelle Starks. She was phenomenal. So we linked up and I asked her, "You wanna go on Soul Train?" So we started rehearsing every day, and then we went to the
audition and nailed it. The rest is history. (funk music) When I first came on the show, the first artist that
I saw was James Brown, which was my idol, and I got to actually meet him. So that was like over the moon for me. And I think he performed
"Papa Don't Take No Mess". It was surreal. It was surreal. And it was like kind of things to come because that was who I often looked up to, and that was the first person I saw. So I was like, I'm meant to be here. I was very young when I started the show, I was like 15 years old. So I didn't have a job, I was broke, so all I could do was eat the two-piece Kentucky chicken box, which was great. Hey, they fed me. But as I got older and I got a real job and started making real money, hey, it elevated to five-star
lunches with cocktails while the others ate the chicken. (funk music) I've had several partners
being on the show being over 15 years, so there was like Janelle Starks, Norma Evans, Tammy, Cheryl Song. We danced together many years, had a great chemistry together, worked well. (funk music continues) Oh, outfits. Well, we would just like call each other, and we would go shopping together, and get something and maybe
my mother would embellish it. Or Toney would make us stuff. We always made it a thing,
outfits were important. So we'd work on them in between tapings. A lot of the outfits I wore
were designed by my mother, and then also Toney Briggs. I remember this one
that Toney Briggs made, it looked like a space suit. It was made out of silver lamé, and it looked like... It was just amazing. I still have it in my closet. And then there was another
one that a special artists did almost like graffiti on a jean outfit. And I gave that to the
Smithsonian Institute. (funk music) Being a Soul Train dancer
was amazing back then. I wish we had internet and social media, back then we'd be superstars. But I can recall getting
a lot of favoritism. Like I could get into any club I wanted, just go to the front of the line, velvet rope was open. And people would send me clothes free, give me stuff to wear because
I was popular on the show. People, they hate, and it's like... Well, we were kinda arrogant too. We would refer to the people
on the floor as the peasants because we were the kings, we were up on the risers so, and there was like a little
bit of a competition there or whatever, but I sure worked hard
as hell to stay up there. And I did, my entire career
I was a riser dancer, and that was the coveted positions. (funk music) First and foremost, I am the
creator of the Harlem shake. It was created in 1981. That is what I'm most famous for, but I do several things like the windmill, waacking is a style that I
picked up through Tyrone Proctor and put my own style on it. And I'm known for a lot of stuff. (The Gap Band "Party Train") I can remember one
wonderful moment with Don, well, a few, but the last thing that we
would tape when we leave will be the Soul Train line, everybody lines up, right? You may line up, but they're not gonna keep
you in the way that you were. The producers would come up and say, no, you start, you do this. And I remember I was like in the middle or towards the end of the line, and Don tapped me on the shoulder, I thought he was gonna sit me down. He tells me, "No, I want
you to start the line." And that was like fire for me. So that's a good moment. I had on an Indian outfit with fringe. (The Gap Band "Party Train" continues) ♪ Mmm ♪ ♪ Mmm ♪ There were times when I
went down with a partner, obviously those were rehearsed. And then other times, they just stick you there, you just got to go for gold, it's your chance to shine. I mean, it was your 10 seconds of fame, and you just had to kill it. And I loved it. (Patti LaBelle "If Only You Knew") ♪ Ooh, and if only you knew ♪ ♪ How much I do ♪ Certain people when you
would record them live, they had to do lip-sync, but there was only a couple
people that would not. It's very expensive to
shoot live as you know. Patti LaBelle, she was always live. Luther Vandross, he was always live. Marvin Gaye, he was always live. Certain people, they recorded live, and those performances was
like being in a concert, like singing right to
you, like right there. (Marvin Gaye "After The Dance") ♪ Oh I want you, oh and you want me ♪ The first time I started Soul Train, I also started, I don't know if you knew this, I was a dancer on American Bandstand. At the time, they were
really pushing for inclusion, and so they really, like the few people of
color they have in the show, they just gave them crazy shots. So I was like, hey, I can get
all these shots over here, and my people ain't hooking me up. What had happened was, I became
very popular on that show. And in fact, I was asked to do the
National Dance Contest for American Bandstand, which Don saw. When I came to a taping, I remember him kinda coming up to me, and I was scared, and he says, "I seen you on Bandstand. You did a pretty good job, but I don't want you on that show no more. After this contest, you come back here." And I listened to him. I never went back after the contest, but he said, "Don't worry.
I'ma take care of you." And he did. He put me on a front center riser, and that's where I stayed for years. (funk/hip hop music) Dancing on the show provided
a lot of opportunities because artists would come
right to the show and say, oh, I want you to do my video. I've danced in a lot of videos, Midnight Star "No Parking
on the Dance Floor", Klymaxx "Men All Pause", like all the SOLAR groups, pretty much we did their stuff because Don Cornelius and Dick Griffey were in partnership together. So all those acts, Lakeside, Wispers, Carrie Lucas, all those people, we pretty much would work with them and do their videos, tour with them, choreograph, and things like that. We had the whole package, he had the singers and performers, and then Don had the dancers so. One of the ones I'm really proud
about that I choreographed, it was The Pointer Sisters. We met at Soul Train, I met June, she introduced me to Ruth and Anita. We just became fast friends, and then the fact that I
was a Soul Train dancer, I would actually work with
June, give her privates. And they were surprised,
how June dancing like that? Because she's learning from Myron. (funk/soul music) I stopped because when I started the show, I was 15 years old. When I left, I was mid-30s. I think I had done my time. I got what I got from the show, and I had just become SAG at the time, so I was able to start
acting, which I did. I've been featured on
"Bold and the Beautiful", "Young and the Restless". I've done a lot of episodic television. That basically starts from Soul Train because that kinda got me into the door, and then I got my SAG card. I no longer wanted to dance
on the show not being paid. So it was time for me to go, I felt. (Evelyn "Love Come Down") ♪ Ooh, you're around ♪ ♪ When you're around, baby, yeah ♪ ♪ Baby you make ♪ (Evelyn "Love Come Down" ends)
