"The Hustle" was, and remains, a nice hour's work. At least that's what Van claimed in an Essence interview excerpted in the Bronson book. A DJ at a NYC club called the Adam's Apple was after him to come check out this new Hustle craze, he sent a friend down, the friend came back and showed him the steps, he happened to have an hour of studio time left, wrote "whatever came into (his) head" and voila! My take: the main flute-based sections are good, but the opening & mid-song "DO IT!" parts and the trumpet led sections are dynamite. In a sad parallel, Mr. McCoy died of a heart attack at age 35 in 1979 just six days after Minnie Riperton died of cancer at 31.
As I threatened back in '72, here's a dance medley from The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. It spoils a #1 and a #6 from next year but also includes their very special rendition of "The Hustle", which must be seen to be believed. Prepare to be amazed!
I was a little surprised you got this one mixed up! Bad Luck's my jam. And there seems to be several different mixes of it. Any faves?
Here in DC, we could get Baltimore stations via the old rabbit ears, so I'd seen a lot of La Oprah before she hit it big. Astounded me that the woman on the crummy local Baltimore newscasts turned into a major star!
How long was Avco Embassy Records, later shortened to Avco Records, in business? T-neck had two incarnations, once from the early 60s, and the one most of us are more familiar with that spanned about 14 years. Philadelphia International Records started in 1972 and ended somewhere in the early 90s.
I bought the "Disco Baby" album that November for my birthday. Though it had a bunch of cheesy cover songs, it is still a fun listen. But, it also remains his most popular album.
I was just tired and trying to get the post up. I was thinking of all the disco hits that the person I was replying to may have forgotten about. That's all. I recall during one of Redd Foxx's stand-up routines, he told a funny one-liner of having a heart attack dancing to "Bad Luck".
Avco Embassy Records started up in 1969 and was shortened to Avco in 1971. After 1976, following Avco's bailout from much of the entertainment biz, it was renamed H&L and finally petered out in 1978. As for P.I.R., it actually started in 1971; "Back Stabbers" by the O'Jays, from 1972, was the 17th single put out!
I wanted to say 1971, but I decided to err on the safe side. Before then, they had Gamble Records. I have one Van McCoy album from 1976 on the H&L label. They basically used the same label design but put the logo on the left side.
Living in the Islands all my life and therefore being familiar with the genre Exotica, I've always thought the opening segment of The Hustle was reminiscent of Martin Denny songs like Quiet Village with the use of marimbas or vibes or whatever that is.
While recording acts both old and new were racing up and down the chart this one by a former and future superstar moseyed on up to #23. I have no memory of it at the time despite hearing everything else around it. Wonder how many of you heard this back then?
Ha ha...what a train wreck. I was a teenager working a part time job when that show aired. I remember that I had come home from work and found my brother watching it. I still remember my exact quote: “What the hell is this sh...?”
Your point about the Big Band Era is well taken. My Dad had no use for rock music at all, but he liked disco because it reminded him of the Big Band music he listened to when he was a teenager. It’s a reason I never warmed up to disco - my Dad and I were not going to like the same music. That seems petty now but that’s the dumb stuff you do as a teenager.
I didn't say disco had dropped off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again. I just said that after a pretty good run of solidly disco #1s the prior year, there'd been a bit of a drop in its commercial fortunes in '75, even for established disco acts who'd already charted a #1, like Barry White. And indeed, looking at that list, only two of those got to the pole position, and one was in '74. Overall chart placements were: #1 #10 #8 #16 #42 #22 #11 (I'm assuming you meant Carol Douglas) #6 #1 #14 Also, it looks like most of those hailed from late '74 or early '75. We're now in late summer. And while some of those songs would have certainly gotten play at discos, or were specifically targeted to discos ("Hi-jack") I don't consider many of them to be straight up disco the way "The Hustle" was. Several skew closer to funk or soul, like "Marmalade", which is a bit of both. But with "The Hustle" having been inspired by an actual dance, I think it represents a big commercial boost for straight up disco, one that was enough to propel it from reasonably successful new genre to the center of the cultural zeitgeist, via a well-timed good old fashioned dance craze. Something we hadn't really seen in more than a decade. The charts are going to dramatically reflect this shift starting almost immediately. The second half of this year looks nothing like the first half when it comes to disco hits at the pole position.
The Hustle is a decent enough track, even if it has "formula" written all over it. Maybe it created the formula right then and there. It's very cut-and-dried, not that it was the first song that ever could be described thus.
Yeah my family lived in Dale City, Va from 77-81 and I used to pull the B-more stations in as well. To this day I can still recite the Orioles Starting Lineup from that era. Any love for Captain 20?
I heard it on a billiards jukebox. I was looking for something to play while my cousins and I were there playing pool. I saw the record and decided to check it out just because it was Michael Jackson. Turned out that I liked it enough to buy the 45. That would be MJ's last significant solo single on Motown before he, and most of his brothers left the label for Epic.
My experience was different than it was with most of you. My parents and we kids all loved the same music. It was probably different with Black people. I only say that because I have noticed that the generation gap didn't hit the R&B world, or Black people until the 80s, when hip-hop came on the scene.
Oh yes! I think it was 1970 when our family got a TV with UHF capability. I watched Channel 20 all of the time - they had the best shows: Batman, Lost in Space, Speed Racer, Ultraman. I met Dick Dyszel (Captain 20 & Count Gore de Vol) at a comic book convention and had a nice conversation about the good ol’ days.
That just made my day haha. It's been 40 years or so but I still remember that dude very well....and ads for Jhoon Rhee Karate School of course
Yeah, I think I got the connection between disco and big band as a kid, but then kinda forgot about it as a teen and young adult. It only hit me again later, the parallels. Joni Mitchell has a lyric that sort of touched on it as well I think, from "Edith & The Kingpin" off this year's The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, describing a mafioso arriving at a small town dance hall and sizing up the office girls assembled therein after work: Sophomore jive From victims of typewriters The band sounds like typewriters The big man he's not listening Just using the word "the band" to describe a disco act in this context - plus some of the music and b-vox that accompany this passage - helps draw the parallel. Describing disco as music that sounds "like typewriters" is a great observation. This is probably also evidence of how disco blew up into this noteworthy thing while Mitchell was recording Hissing in the middle of '75.
