In 1975, Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony topped the charts with the song “The Hustle.” The disco/dance song was released on April 18, 1975, and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 26, 1975, where it remained for one week.
“The Hustle” was a standout for several reasons. Written by McCoy, who was a record producer and arranger, the song featured a lead melody which was played on a piccolo by session musician Philip Bodner. "The Hustle" also featured electronic pianos and horn and string sections directed by arranger Gene Orloff, according to Songfacts.
In addition, the hit song only contained five words. The only lyrics in “The Hustle” are “Do the hustle,” which is repeated 11 times throughout the song. The other lyric, “Do it,” is said five times.
McCoy went on to win the Grammy Award for best pop instrumental performance for “The Hustle” at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards in 1976.
The dawn of a dance craze
“The Hustle” song helped make the Hustle dance craze a phenomenon. The partner dance, which originated in Latino neighborhoods in the South Bronx in the early 1970s, caught McCoy’s attention. The songwriter was so inspired by news of the dance style that he wrote “The Hustle” with only an hour of studio time left while making his album Disco Baby.
According to The New York Times, McCoy told Black Stars magazine in 1975, “I hadn't even seen the dance when I wrote the song.”
The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits quoted McCoy telling Essence magazine that he almost didn’t write the song. "'The Hustle' was the last cut we did on the album, and we almost didn't do it," McCoy said. "I was introduced to the hustle by a disc jockey (David Todd) at a New York City nightclub called the Adam's Apple. He'd been after me for a while to come and check out this new dance, but I just never had the chance, so I sent one of my friends."
While McCoy initially felt the new style his friend showed him seemed “strange,” he also likened it to ballroom dance and quickly wrote the song about it.
"We had just one hour of studio time left, so I sat down and wrote whatever came into my head,” he shared. “Even after I finished 'The Hustle,' I wasn't excited because outside of the Latin market and the New York discos, I wasn't aware of how popular the dance had become. I had no idea when I threw it together that it was going to be the hit it is."
“The Hustle” went on to sell more than 10 million records, and it became the dance hit of the ‘70s, per Smithsonian magazine. It was McCoy’s only Top 40 hit before his death in 1979 at age 39.
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