According to TMZ and the Los Angeles Times, police found 75-year-old Don Cornelius, the father of Soul Train, in his Sherman Oaks, Calif. home early Wednesday morning, dead of a gunshot wound to to head.  Anonymous sources told both outlets that police suspect it was a suicide. 

Cornelius battled domestic abuse charges and underwent a divorce in recent years. In 2011, his iconic music and dance show, which went off the air in 2007 but lives on in the form of the annual Soul Train Awards, celebrated the 40th anniversary of its premiere. The Root staffers fondly recalled their favorite Soul Train memories to commemorate the occasion.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

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Lauren is a former Deputy Editor of The Root.