Don Cornelius, the host and founder of influential music show Soul Train, was found dead this morning in his Los Angeles home. He was 75 years old.

Police found him at 4am and ruled he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Cornelius, a journalist by trade, started Soul Train in 1970 at WCIU in Chicago, and it soon because a national television platform, one of the first to prominently feature African-Americans and one that introduced many musical acts to the American public. Cornelius hosted it until 1993 and it went off the air in 2006.

In 2008 he was arrested for domestic violence at the same house where he was found dead today. The same year he sold his stake in the show to MadVision Entertainment. But today, let's not think of those things. Let's remember the dulcet-voiced Cornelius how we always knew him, interviewing musicians and introducing the famed Soul Train Line.

[Image via Getty]