Entry · catalog no. 4243
the Bus Stop
/ /ðə ˈbʌs stɑp/ /thuh BUSS stop
noun · Los Angeles, then the East Coast · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A solo line dance done in evenly spaced rows, everyone facing one wall and quarter-turning to a new wall each cycle: three-step walks back and forward with a touch, grapevines side to side, jumps, a double heel click with the elbows flapping, then toe taps and a knee hitch that turns you.
“Soon as they played it, the whole floor lined up and did the Bus Stop.”
Origin & Attribution
Born in Black and Latino discos in Los Angeles around 1974 and 1975 under the name the L.A. Hustle, and renamed the Bus Stop when it reached the East Coast. Its ancestor is the Madison, the Black line dance that came out of Columbus and Baltimore at the end of the 1950s. The Fatback Band's record (Are You Ready) Do the Bus Stop, released on Event Records in 1975, followed the dance and named it for a national audience; it did not create it, and the two are routinely reversed in retellings. It is generally credited as the first four-wall line dance of the disco era, which makes it the direct ancestor of every Black line dance that followed, from the Electric Slide to the Wobble.
1974
Danced in Los Angeles discos as the L.A. Hustle
1975
The Fatback Band releases (Are You Ready) Do the Bus Stop on Event Records
1976
Renamed the Bus Stop as it spreads to the East Coast
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Los Angeles, then the East Coast · 1970s
Spoken by
Black and Latino disco dancers; later cookouts, reunions and weddings
$THEBUSThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical1 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1974
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1975
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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By region — how it actually sounds
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Citations & Sources
■
The Fatback Band, (Are You Ready) Do the Bus Stop, Event Records EV 227
1975
■
+ Cite a sourceOfficial Charts Company UK chart entry, Do the Bus Stop
1975
See also