Entry · catalog no. 7432
hully gully
/ /ˈhʌli ˈɡʌli/ /HUL-ee GUL-ee
noun · Los Angeles, California · 1950s
✓ Verified
1.
A late-1950s party dance in which a caller or the song itself tells dancers what steps to do, usually in a line or group.
“The DJ put on the Hully Gully and the whole floor lined up.”
2.
The Olympics' 1959 R&B single that named and spread the dance.
“He found the Olympics' Hully Gully on a 45 at the swap meet.”
Origin & Attribution
The dance craze is tied to the Olympics, a Black vocal group from Los Angeles, whose single "(Baby) Hully Gully" came out in 1959 and set off a run of Hully Gully records and dance parties. The phrase "hully gully" also has older, unrelated uses (it was already a carnival and sailors' expression), so the entry covers the dance and song, not the phrase's first appearance anywhere.
1959
The Olympics release '(Baby) Hully Gully'
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The West
Los Angeles, California · 1950s
Spoken by
Black and teenage dancers of the early 1960s; R&B and rock-and-roll listeners
$HULLYGThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical67 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
25/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1959
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bayarea
Oakland, CA
@ladi
Los Angeles, CA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
The Olympics, '(Baby) Hully Gully' (single), 1959
song
■
+ Cite a sourceWikipedia, 'Hully Gully (song)' and 'The Olympics (band)'
web
See also