Disco, such a common word today, but its origins actually started in the Big Band era with the radio DJ’s (disc-jockey). The Disc-Jockey would be the one who made the announcements and played the records (a flat 6″ or 12″ Disc with recorded music). The DJ’s would eventually have their own TV, Radio and Movie shows such as DJ’s - ‘Dick Clark and Allan Freed’.

This was to eventually get the “DJ’s” into the nightclubs and start the disco trend (using records/discs rather than live bands). It was much cheaper for the club owners than hiring the bands and the music was much more varied and up-to-date. The first Disco club was the Peppermint Lounge in Paris, France which opened in the 1950’s. This would open the door to other establishments over time. The first Disco in the USA was the “Whiskey-A-Go-Go” on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood (now named The Whiskey).

In the Late 1960’s, the disco dance craze was not really apparent yet. Some Cuban dancers in Florida where dancing a form of salsa and swing to the experimental disco sounds in the late 1960’s. About 1968 a new type of electronic music (synthesizers) was making an impact and a new music was being born. The Cubans and the new music formed to create disco music … a kind of hard hitting, thumping continuous beat that could be mixed from one song to another without stopping the music. By 1970, these couples would start doing what was finally tagged as ‘Disco Swing’, the public would later become confused and call it the Hustle (Van McCoy), which was actually a line dance, however the name stuck for the better. The discos were now getting high tech and the money was being invested in fancier nightclubs.

None-the-less, disco as a music, a dance or a club had not died out completely, and probably never will, it has just transformed with the times. It fits any society’s pocketbook and a society’s want for the many varied artist’s songs which are made available by the DJ’s, unlike the bands who usually don’t know any other style of music except what they play as well as charging extremely high fees to play a nightclub are easily replaced by a DJ. The dances, mainly the couples dance today known as the Hustle, is still being danced by a handfull of people, mainly in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Philly and Los Angeles. The main disco dance styles today are the faster and more energetic L.A. Hustle, the simpler Street or Sling Hustle, and the slower, smoother New York Hustle.