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Boogie Wonderland Sneeky Peek

Paramount's "Boogie Wonderland" disco show is coming up this Saturday! Those out there that love that genre of music are in for a treat! Path will be djing before and after the show, nothing but disco.

In the meantime, something to peek your interest is one of our newest dancers to Paramount with an act featuring the song, "The Hustle." 

Van McCoy - The Hustle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj23_nDFSfE

Here are some song facts for you to enjoy...

(from Wikipedia)
"The Hustle" is a disco song by songwriter/arranger Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony. It went to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts during the summer of 1975. It also peaked at number 9 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) and number 3 in the UK. It would eventually sell over one million copies and is one of the most popular songs of the disco era. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance early in 1976 for songs recorded in 1975.

While in New York City to make an album, McCoy composed the song after his music partner, Charles Kipps, watched patrons do a dance known as "the Hustle" in the nightclub Adam's Apple. The sessions were done at New York's Media Sound studio with pianist McCoy, bassist Gordon Edwards, drummer Steve Gadd, keyboardist Richard Tee, guitarists Eric Gale and John Tropea, and orchestra leader Gene Orloff. Producer Hugo Peretti contracted piccolo player Philip Bodner to play the lead melody.


During the summer of 1975, "The Hustle" became a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts. Billboard ranked it as the No. 21 song for 1975. It also peaked at number 9 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) and number 3 in the UK.


According to producers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, who owned the Avco record label that originally released "The Hustle", McCoy met with them shortly before his death in 1979 to discuss ideas for a new, longer version of the song, in order to appease Avco's UK and German affiliates who were clamoring for a 12" disco single release. The new version, clocking in at just under 6-and-a-half minutes, was assembled posthumously as a remix, using parts of the original recording plus new parts, including drum, Syndrum, and a "little" Moog synthesizer. It was credited to Van McCoy alone or with an unnamed orchestra, mixed by "The Mix Masters", identity unknown.

The Dance itself...
There was also a popular line dance known as The Continental Walk, which was danced to the eponymous record by Hank Ballard; subsequent versions were also recorded by Chubby Checker and Danny & The Juniors. In the Continental Walk dancers dance backwards, then forward, then to the right and then to the left. They jump forward and backward, and click their heels. They do some quick tap steps and then turn to the left to face a new wall. The Continental Walk was the first followed by the Bus Stop which had monthly variations. The Bus Stop was the best known and most frequently performed line dance in the discos of 1976 and 1977. This dance was also referred to as the "LA Bus Stop Hustle." A detailed description of the steps along with an instructional video of this hustle line dance is available here.

This line dance was a version of Merengue with steps to rotate the dance direction orientation to another wall. The most popular current version (1980–2008) is called "The Electric Slide".

The original NY mainstream Bus Stop and Hustle trend ended and freestyle took over when recording artists Chic released the song "Le Freak" in 1978. Everyone else in the country started in 1978 after Saturday Night Fever was released.

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