The Hustle

*Todd plays the opening notes on his piano...*

***VAN MCCOY - THE HUSTLE***
***A one-hit retrospective***

*End of the piano part leads into...*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity**: Do the hustle!
>
>

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle
>
>

*Todd does the hustle in his chair*

**Todd:** Welcome back to One Hit Wonderland where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song! Or one dance, in this case.

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle!
>
>

**Todd (VO):** The hustle is not the first disco song. There's debate on what the first disco song is, maybe it's...

*Video for "Rock the Boat" plays*

**Todd (VO):** this song.

*Video for "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Or this one. Or...

*Video for "Rock Your Baby" plays*

**Todd (VO):** this one. One hit wonders all.

*Video for "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" plays*

**Todd (VO):** But all those songs are from 1974, so they'd all predate "The Hustle," which hit #1 in July of '75.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** But "The Hustle" still feels like the first of something, some kind of milestone or tipping point.

**Todd:** I wasn't there, obviously, but that's the way it looks to me.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** It's the first #1 single that could not be conceivably defined as anything else.

**Todd:** A lot of those early disco hits, if you ask people, I think they'd probably still say it's just soul music or funk or something.

**Todd (VO):** But "The Hustle" is not. It's not soul, it's not funk, it's not R&B, it's just disco.

**Todd:** It was intended for one place: the dance floor.

**Todd (VO):** And for that reason, I suspect "The Hustle" is when disco *became* the phenomenon we know it as now. The unignorable force that would end up defining and dominating the rest of the '70s. And you can thank one guy for that: Van the Man.

*Picture of album cover featuring...*

**Todd (VO):** Van McCoy, I should say, that's his name.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** A man who had spent his entire career working for other people. Waiting for his moment to shine.

**Todd:** And he did it with one of the greatest grooves in dance history.

**Todd (VO):** And look, I have no idea how to do the hustle. I'm not sure I would even recognize the hustle if I saw other people doing it. But I love "The Hustle" regardless. And so did most of America, because it was not just a popular song from a super popular genre, it was a craze just on its own.

**Todd:** In fact, Hustlemania predates the song itself.

**Todd (VO):** It was *humongous*. And the man behind it all almost doesn't matter.

**Todd:** Like, I realize this show is about one hit wonders, but "The Hustle" *really, thoroughly* dwarfs its own artist more than anything I've ever covered here.

**Todd (VO):** Which is saying a lot, cause this guy turned out to have a pretty fascinating career.

**Todd:** So let's check it out! Possibly while doing a quarter step backwards and putting our finger in the air.

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle!
>
>

***Before the hit***

*Slideshow of various pictures of...*

**Todd (VO):** Van McCoy, from Washington, D.C., was one of those music industry lifers who's always working behind the scenes and...usually never gets that big break of their own. Like, I think his success, both behind the scenes and eventually under his own name, happened just through sheer *volume*.

**Todd:** Like, if you write 1000 songs, one of them's gotta be a hit.

*Highlighted biographical text indicating Van has over 700 copyrights to his credit*

**Todd (VO):** And I'm only barely exaggerating. Like, the amount of credits this guy has to his name is *insane.*

**Todd:** So I'm just going to try and pick out the highlights of his songwriting career.

*Video for "Baby, I'm Yours" plays*

> **Barbara Lewis:** Baby, I'm yours.
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Aw man, absolute chestnut right there. R&B classic from the mid '60s.

*Slideshow of various covers of the song*

**Todd (VO):** Covered about a billion times.

*Video for "Giving Up" plays*

> **Gladys Knight:** Giving up
>
>

**Todd (VO):** One of Gladys Knight's first hits, also covered many times.
*Video for "Walk Away from Love" plays*

> **David Ruffin's backing band:** Gonna walk away from love.
>
>

**Todd (VO):** That is David Ruffin from The Temptations, all his biggest solo hits were from Van McCoy, uh, this one hit the top 10. All good stuff.

*Video for "Love Is the Answer" plays*

**Todd (VO):** He also did some orchestra work, he, you know, he did all the string arrangements for The Stylistics' biggest hits. Uh, I wanna point out this one he did specifically, "Love Is the Answer."

**Todd:** Cause he did an instrumental version of that one on his own.

*The above plays over the single cover, which houses a familiar melody*

**Todd (VO):** \*imitating the melody which sounds like "The Hustle"\* Do-do-do-dodo-do-do-do \*sigh\* Yeah, that's...

**Todd:** That's just "The Hustle" in a minor key.

**Todd (VO):** Yeah, you will hear bits of "The Hustle" here and there and everywhere in all his songs.

*Picture of Van McCoy*

**Todd (VO):** So, apparently he found his true calling as a songwriter and arranger. Including his big hit of course, which is an instrumental.

**Todd:** But he did, originally, want to be a singer.

*Album cover for The Starlighters*

**Todd (VO):** His first released songs were from his teenage doo-wop group in the late '50s.

**Todd:** And he was releasing singles all through the '60s that just never caught on.

*Album cover for "Night Time Is Lonely Time"*

**Todd (VO):** He even got to release a whole vocal album in 1966. Here it is, "Night Time Is Lonely Time," produced by the legendary Mitch Miller.

**Todd:** ...Wait...Mi-...i-...

*Video of Mitch Miller plays*

**Todd (VO):** Isn't that the "Sing Along Orchestra" guy from...from, like, old black and white TV?

> **Mitch Miller and Choir:** When I grow too old to dream
>
>

**Todd:** \*stares\* ...This is the guy you want to make your pop album?
*Album cover for "Night Time Is Lonely Time" with the title track playing*

> **Van McCoy:** Night time is lonely time. The sun goes down
>
>

**Todd:** ...Okay, to be clear, *this* is what soul music sounded like in 1966.
*Live video for "Hold On, I'm Coming" plays*

> **Sam and Dave:** Hold on, I'm coming. Oh-oh! I'm coming.
>
>

**Todd (VO):** So yeah...

*Album cover for "Night Time Is Lonely Time"*

**Todd (VO):** I mean, I guess there's always room in music for throwbacks, but...you know, I don't think he can be surprised he didn't take off trying to be Nat King Cole in a James Brown world.

**Todd:** But the guy always said that his main influences were classical composers as much as modern music, so naturally, he started leaning towards making instrumental work.

*Picture of a cover of...*

**Todd (VO):** He formed his new band, the Soul City Symphony,

**Todd:** and he started pumping his energy into that in the mid '70s.

*Video of disco dancing*

**Todd (VO):** And, at the same time, there was this new energy springing up out of these dance scenes. And he saw one new dance. He decided to make a song for it and he shat something out in an hour.

**Todd:** And naturally, it was his biggest hit. \*shrugs\*

***The big hit***

**Todd:** Disco is...

*Image of a gravestone for disco*

**Todd (VO):** ...well before my time, it was...already ancient history by the time I was born.

**Todd:** But in the course of my life, I've seen that history get *drastically* rewritten.

*Image of a sign saying "DISCO SUCKS"*

**Todd (VO):** I was first made aware of as *the* worst music *ever made*.

*Image saying "Either you love disco, or you are wrong."*

**Todd (VO):** And then, like, overnight it became the *greatest* music ever made.

**Todd:** And I kinda think it's getting beaten into the ground.

*Video of a disco documentary plays*

**Todd (VO):** I-it's been weird to watch disco turn into yet *another* overmythologized genre like punk rock and grunge and gangsta rap...honestly, I'm a little tired of it.

**Todd:** But I do get why people talk it up so much.

**Todd (VO):** A big part of it is critics and historians reexamining the undercurrents of racism and homophobia in the backlash, and, you know, that's all pretty well-covered. But there's another reason for the turnaround on disco that needs to be mentioned.

**Todd:** These songs hold the fuck up!

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle!
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Well, not *all* of them hold up

*Album cover for "Babyface"*

**Todd (VO):** There are, in fact, a ton of shitty disco songs out there.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** But a whole lot of them have aged really well, including "The Hustle," which is fucking killer! Like, I don't dance. At all. But even I know this is a great song.

**Todd:** The weird thing is that people were doing the hustle before they had "The Hustle" to hustle to.

**Todd (VO):** According to what I could find, the dance had already existed for years. Puerto Rican kids were doing it in the Bronx, cause the chaperones didn't like them grinding on each other, so they invented this dance, and it just kinda spread out from there. Like, this is the dance that *made* disco.

*Video of disco documentary plays*

> **Michael Musto:** "The Hustle," I think, was the biggest disco dance of that whole era. It just had this infectious beat to it that made you wanna do the hustle.
>
>

*Slideshow of various hustle-related single covers*

**Todd (VO):** And there wound up being just an *insane* number of hustle songs. I'm not even sure if Van McCoy was the first,

**Todd:** but he's definitely my favorite.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Like, *this* is the one that deserves to be called just "The Hustle." It's, like, one of my favorite disco songs ever. Granted, I decided that a week ago while writing this episode. I can't believe I didn't realize how much I like this song.

**Todd:** Like, it starts off with that beautiful,

*Video of sunlight peeking through clouds*

**Todd (VO):** like, almost angelic intro and it promises you, like...\*chuckle\* spiritual enlightenment or something. God is a DJ, and he is ready to boogie.

**Todd:** And then you get one of the two actual lyrics in the song.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** \*whispers\* Do it!
>
>

**Todd:** I'll be honest, that actually kinda strikes me as a little creepy.

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do it!
>
>

**Todd (VO):** \*whispers\* Get a gun!

**Todd:** But then once the Son of Sam voices go away, the funk guitar starts building up and the strings get higher, and then we get those magic words.

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle!
>
>

**Todd:** \*dancing in his seat\*

**Todd (VO):** When some songs tell you to dance, it is a command. But, "The Hustle" is not really making any demands, they're just confident you're gonna do it. And they were correct.

**Todd:** But of course, the hook of the song is not those three words.

**Todd (VO):** There are a *lot* of instruments on "The Hustle," and they all get their moment.

**Todd:** But "The Hustle" is driven by one specifically.

*Section of the hook Todd is describing plays*

**Todd:** That flute solo.

**Todd (VO):** The song's success rides on it. It is such a perfect hook.

**Todd:** *So* memorable...Let's face it, so *annoying.*

**Todd (VO):** It is just unignorable. It feels fitting that "The Hustle," arguably the first disco hit, has an instrumental line so incessantly catchy,

**Todd:** It can only be matched by the *last* disco hit, "Funkytown"!

*Video for "Funkytown" plays*

**Todd (VO):** If someone wants to mash up the flute from "The Hustle" with the beeping synth line from "Funkytown," I'm certain you could melt brains with it.

*Meme of a woman pulling her hair and screaming "CAN'T GET THAT SONG OUTTA MY HEAD!!!"*

**Todd (VO):** It would *destroy* people.

*Video of "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** And then we get that beautiful trumpet solo, which...

**Todd:** Okay, it does sound a bit like The Price Is Right theme, yes.

*Video of The Price Is Right plays*

**Todd (VO):** Van McCoy, come on down!

**Todd:** And you can tell this came pretty early in the disco era, cause...

*Video for "Good Times" plays*

**Todd (VO):** the later disco songs have a lot more bass in it. You know, and the drums hit a lot harder.

**Todd:** Yeah, there's not a lot of the disco "thump thump" in "The Hustle," it's *all* treble.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Violins, flute, trumpet, it's all still very lush and orchestrated.

*Video for "Love Train" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Like, Philly Soul was still kinda big at the time, so...that feels like a much bigger influence on "The Hustle" than anything else, it's more similar to, like, The O'Jays or...

*Video of...*

**Todd (VO):** to Barry White, who had his own orchestra that sounded something similar to this. In fact, they sound nearly identical, cause...

**Todd:** "The Hustle" is basically

*Video of...*

**Todd (VO):** Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" with...flute instead of Barry.

*Video of "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** \*singing along to the music\* My darling, I...can't get enough of your love, babe.

**Todd:** Now let's all do the hustle!

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Do the hustle!
>
>

**Todd:** I don't actually know how to do the hustle, in fact, I'm not entirely clear what the hustle is! Apparently there were a whole lot of different dances with that name.

**Todd (VO):** There's...the ballroom couple dance. And that one seems like it takes a lot of work and you'd need lessons for it.

*Clip of Saturday Night Fever plays*

**Todd (VO):** But then there's also the line dance hustle, which looks a lot easier. And there's...

*Clip of Dancing with the Stars plays*

**Todd (VO):** ...like, the Latin hustle, the Spanish hustle, the New York hustle, the California hustle, I don't even know if these are different dances or they're just different names.

*Video of...*

**Todd (VO):** I looked up a lot of tutorials and they all told me something different.

*Different tutorial plays*

> **Dancer:** Forward! Back! Forward, back, quack, quack! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! Tap, tap, tap!
>
>

**Todd:** Yeah, honestly, I think I maybe know *less* about how to hustle than when I started.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** But even so, there's something magical about this song, just the big sweeping strings and the beautiful trumpet. Like, this song to me is just like a beautiful sunny day or a great view. It just puts a big smile on my face.

**Todd:** Now obviously, Van McCoy went away after this.

**Todd (VO):** Dance crazes are not a good way to build up a career.

*Videos of...*

**Todd (VO):** Ask Silento. Or Mr. C The Slide Man. Or Los Del Rio, or Little Eva or so on.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** I guess people care more about the dance than the music, so if anyone should launch to stardom, it's the choreographer.

**Todd:** But this guy was obviously extremely talented, so...he did more than you'd guess. So let's check that out.

***The failed follow-up***

*Video for "Change With the Times" plays*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Change with the times
>
>

**Todd (VO):** The follow-up to "The Hustle" has actual words to it.

*Single cover for...*

**Todd (VO):** It's called "Change With the Times."

*Album cover for...*

**Todd (VO):** From the album "The Disco Kid." Awesome vest, man.

**Todd:** You know, "Change With the Times," that's a good title for a guy who led the world into the bold new defining sound of the '70s.

*Album cover for "Night Time is Lonely Time"*

**Todd (VO):** Maybe it's something he learned from his weird out-of-date debut. If he'd known to change with the times in 1966,

**Todd:** He could have broken through a lot earlier.

*Video for "Change With the Times" plays*

> **Faith, Hope and Charity:** Forget what used to be, change with the times
>
>

**Todd (VO):** So the title fits, but...honestly, this song didn't do much for me. Not much of a hook to it, and I'd skip it entirely if not for this hilarious video that goes with it. I like that he has to conduct, seeing as he's not a singer,

**Todd:** but we don't see who he's conducting, so he's just staring at you awkwardly. And you can see him, like, singing too, but...I don't know if that's actually him singing.

*Video performance of...*

**Todd (VO):** The vocal group in his orchestra is Faith, Hope and Charity, which was another of the bands he produced. Uh, I don't know which one the guy is, maybe he's Charity.

*Video for "Change With the Times" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Eh, I don't know, maybe Van's singing also, I couldn't tell you. And I guess that big pile of riches in the foreground is the money he made by changing with the times and getting into disco. Oh, also, Van McCoy is a giant...\*chuckles\* Cool.

*Cuts to a part of the video where the camera is zoomed in on Van's eyes*

**Todd (VO):** ...Dude...w-what are you looking at?

**Todd:** \*looks down then back up\* What...?

**Todd (VO):** Anyway, this did make a little dent in the R&B charts but didn't break the pop top 40. Probably because there's no dance that goes with it.

*Single cover for...*

**Todd (VO):** He had another song, "Party," and that one's a little funkier.

**Todd:** It landed at #20 on the R&B charts and...well, honestly, that's about as good as it gets as far as success in America goes.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays while "Party" still plays in the background*

**Todd (VO):** Like, the fact that he mostly made instrumentals might have been a difficult sell. Dance music has always been better for instrumentals than most genres, but...not *that* much better, people like to sing along.

**Todd:** However, he did land one last big top 10 hit.

*BBC footage plays*

**Todd (VO):** Albeit, in the U.K.. And really, that has to be considered his real follow-up, so here it is, the spiritual successor to "The Hustle:"

**Todd:** "The Shuffle!"

*Video for "The Shuffle" plays (same BBC footage as before)*

**Todd:** It's...it's basically just "The Hustle" in 6/8 time.

**Todd (VO):** And I don't like it *nearly* as much. But I am impressed that the Brits of '77 could dance to music that wasn't in 4/4.

*Footage of disco dancing plays*

**Todd (VO):** I mean, disco music is *not* supposed to be that complicated.

**Todd:** \*imitating drum beat while the count of the beat plays underneath\* DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch. Simple and easy so you don't lose your place.

*Video for "The Shuffle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** 6/8 is not exactly *super* complicated, I mean, it's simple enough, but *this* is music for the *masses*. Anything harder than the basics is gonna throw them off.

**Todd:** \*counting and snapping along off beat to the numbers on the screen\* 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2...3...4...fiAAAGGHH

**Todd (VO):** So congrats to the Brits and their superior music education that they were able to groove to "The Shuffle."

**Todd:** \*gives thumbs up\*

***Did he ever do anything else?***

**Todd:** Van McCoy pumped out a lot of albums in the last half of the '70s.

*Video of disco dancing plays*

**Todd (VO):** Uh, only a couple of them are available on Spotify, but I checked out what was there.

*Live video of...*

**Todd (VO):** Uh, I wanted to mention this one I liked: "African Symphony."

*Video plays*

**Todd (VO):** This is not Van's version, obviously, this is a newer version cause...uh, this one's apparently still very popular with orchestras today.

**Todd:** I think maybe based on that, he was inspired to make

*Album cover for...*

**Todd (VO):** "Rhythms of the World," a disco instrumental album including eclectic music styles from all over the globe!

**Todd:** Here is "The Soul Cha Cha"

*Disco video plays with the above song*

**Todd (VO):** Nice. And here is...

**Todd:** ..."Oriental Boogie..."

*Same video plays with the above song*

**Todd (VO):** 'Kay, that one feels a little outdated.

**Todd:** And, uh, here is..."Indian Warpath..."

*Same video plays with the above song*

**Todd (VO):** Okay, I think we're kinda losing the plot here.

*Image of newspaper article reporting...*

**Todd (VO):** Anyway, towards the end of the '70s, he was getting tired of disco and he was talking about transitioning into other genres,

**Todd:** but sadly, he would not get that chance, because he would not live to see the '80s.

*Image of newspaper article reporting...*

**Todd (VO):** He died of a heart attack in 1979 at the way too young age of 39.

**Todd:** Since it was the disco era...

*Clip of cocaine usage*

**Todd: (VO):** kind of easy to *assume* what caused the heart attack...it would...also explain how insanely productive he was.

**Todd:** But I've seen some places say he was just...in bad health in general. We can only speculate.

*Image of Van McCoy*

**Todd (VO):** It's a shame, cause a guy like that, as talented an orchestrator and composer as he was, he would have been working in music for the next few decades, I'm sure.

***Did he deserve better?***

**Todd:** The man was extremely talented, so does he deserve more credit for all the things he did? Yeah! Yeah, absolutely...Do I think he deserves to be household name or...have any of his other songs be big hits? No, not really.

*Video for "The Hustle" plays*

**Todd (VO):** No, I think "The Hustle" was the best thing he ever put his name on, and...if that's his legacy, it's a pretty nice one to go out on. Really, he was, like, the first of the modern dance producers, right?! He's the one who realized he didn't have to give credit to any of his songs to anyone else. He could just put his name on his own work, so Calvin Harris, David Guetta, they owe him a debt of gratitude.

**Todd:** Yeah, this song still rules. Here, here, I'm gonna see if I can dance in this chair. \*starts dancing\* Travolta! Travolta! Quack, quack, snap, snap! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! \*gives up, shrugs and leaves\*

*End of "The Hustle" video plays*

*Closing Tag Song: "Hustle Rap" - Talko*

***THE END***

***"The Hustle" is owned by Avco Records***

***This video is owned by me***

***THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL PATRONS!***