"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues written by Jerry Leiber
and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Willie Mae "Big
Mama" Thornton in 1952. Other early versions illustrate the
differences among blues, country, and rock and roll in the mid
1950s. The 1956 remake by Elvis Presley is the best known
version. This is the version that is #19 on Rolling Stone's
list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "Hound Dog" was
also recorded by 5 country singers in 1953 alone, and over 26
times through 1964. . From the 1970s onward, the song has
appeared, or is heard, as a part of the soundtrack in numerous
motion pictures, most notably in blockbusters such as
American Graffiti,
Grease,
Forrest Gump,
Lilo & Stitch,
A Few Good Men (film)and
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The blues singer Big Mama Thornton's biggest hit was Jerry
Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Hound Dog", which she recorded in
1952. Thornton’s "Hound Dog" was the first record Leiber and
Stoller produced themselves. They took over the session because
their work had sometimes been misrepresented, and on this one
they knew how they wanted the drums to sound; Johnny Otis was
supposed to produce it, but they wanted him on drums. Otis
received a writing credit on all 6 of the 1953 pressings. This
1953 Peacock Records release (#1612) was number one on the
Billboard rhythm and blues charts for seven weeks.
Thornton gave this account of how the original was created
to Ralph Gleason. “They were just a couple of kids, and they
had this song written on the back of a paper bag.” She added a
few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm
(some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars),
and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of
the song. In fact, she interacts constantly in a call and
response fashion during a one minute long guitar "solo" by Pete
Lewis . Her vocals include lines such as: "Aw, listen to that
ole hound dog howl.. OOOOoooow", "Now wag your tail", and "Aw,
get it, get it, get it".
Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of
micro-inflections and syncopations. Over a steady backbeat, she
starts out singing each line as one long upbeat. When the words
change from "You ain't nothin' but a HOUND Dog", she begins to
shift the downbeat around: You TOLD me you was
high-class / but I can SEE through that, You ain't
NOTHIN' but a
hounddog. Each has a focal accent which is never
repeated..
The other musicians on this recording are Devonia Williams
(piano), Albert Winston (bass), and Leard Bell (drums), and are
listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra". Habanera and
Habanera-mambo variations can be found in this recording.
A live TV recording of Hound Dog by Thornton from the
European tour of the American Blues and Folk Festival (1965)
has Buddy Guy playing guitar
Peacock released Thornton's version in March 1953. Five
versions of the song were recorded on several different labels
by "country" groups the very next month (April 1953):
Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially
have greater appeal, and asked Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and
the Bellboys to rewrite the lyrics to appeal to a broader radio
audience. "Snoopin' round my door" was replaced with "cryin'
all the time", and "You can wag your tail, but I ain't gonna
feed you no more" was replaced by "You ain't never caught a
rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine." This new version of
"Hound Dog" was recorded on Lowe's Teen Records in 1955 (TEEN
101 with "Move Me Baby" on the flip side,[3] two of four songs
the group did with Lowe that year). The regional popularity of
this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded both
a tour, and an engagement in the Las Vegas Sands Hotel's Silver
Queen Bar. The Bellboys' Vegas version of the song was a
comedy-burlesque with show-stopping va-va-voom
choreography.
Others were also performing the song at that time. Ralph
Jones, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of
1955. told of performing the song when given the spotlight at
live performances. "I used to do "Hound Dog". Haley would get
mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it.
Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the
song."
Elvis Presley's first, apparently not very successful,
appearance in Las Vegas, as an “extra added attraction”, was in
the Venus Room of the New Frontier from April 23 through May 6,
1956. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were the hot act in town,
and Elvis went to the Sands to take in their show. Elvis not
only enjoyed the show, but also loved their reworking of 'Hound
Dog' and asked Freddie if he had any objections to him
recording his own version. By May 16 Elvis had added “Hound
Dog” to his live performances. The song was done as comic
relief, and Presley based the lyrics, which he sometimes
changed, and "gyrations" on what he had seen at the Sands. The
song always got a big reaction and became the standard
closer.
Drummer D.J. Fontana put it this way. "We took that from a
band we saw in Vegas, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. They were
doing the song kinda like that. We went out there every night
to watch them. He'd say: "Let's go watch that band. It's a good
band! That's where he heard "Hound Dog", and shortly thereafter
he said: "Let's try that song".
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" to a nation wide
television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956,
his second appearance with Berle. By this time Scotty Moore had
added a guitar solo, and DJ Fontana had added a hot drum roll
between verses of the song. Presley appeared for the first time
on national television sans guitar. Before his death, Berle
told an interviewer that he had told Elvis to leave his guitar
backstage. "Let 'em see you, son", advised Uncle Miltie.
An upbeat version ended abruptly as Presley threw his arm
back. Then began to vamp at half tempo, "You ain't-a nuthin'
but a hound dog, cuh-crying all the time." "You ain't never
caught a rabbit..." A final wave signaled the band to stop.
Elvis pointed threateningly at the audience, and belted out,
"You ain't no friend of mine." Presley's movements during the
performance were energetic and exaggerated. The reactions of
young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown
on the broadcast.
Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance and the next day
controversy exploded. Berle's network received many letters of
protest. The various self appointed guardians of public
morality attacked Elvis in the press. TV critics began a
merciless campaign against Elvis making statements that; he had
a "caterwalling voice and nonsense lyrics", he was an
"influence on juvenile deliquency", and began using the
nickname "Elvis the Pelvis".
Elvis next appeared on national television singing "Hound
Dog" on the July 1 Steve Allen Show. Steve Allen wrote: "When I
booked Elvis, I naturally had no interest in just presenting
him vaudeville-style and letting him do his spot as he might in
concert. Instead we worked him into the comedy fabric of our
program...We certainly didn't inhibit Elvis' then-notorious
pelvic gyrations, but I think the fact that he had on formal
evening attire made him, purely on his own, slightly alter his
presentation." As Allen was notoriously contemptuous of rock
'n' roll music and songs such as Hound Dog, he smirkingly
presented Elvis "with a roll that looks exactly like a large
roll of toilet paper with, says Allen, the 'signatures of eight
thousand fans' " and the singer had to wear a tuxedo while
singing an abbreviated version of Hound Dog to an actual top
hat-wearing basset hound. Although by most accounts Presley was
a good sport about it, according to Scotty Moore, the next
morning they were all angry about their treatment the previous
night.
The morning after the "Steve Allen Show" performance, the
studio version was recorded for RCA Victor by Elvis' regular
band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar (with Elvis usually
providing rhythm guitar), Bill Black on bass, D.J. Fontana on
drums and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Presley recorded
this version along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want
Me" on July 2, 1956 at RCA's New York City studio. The
producing credit was given to RCA's Steve Sholes, however the
studio recordings reveal that Elvis produced the songs (as well
as most of the RCA recording sessions) himself, which is
verified by the band members. Presley insisted on getting the
song exactly the way he wanted it, recording 31 takes of the
song.
Don't Be Cruel (G2WW-5936) was the flip side of the "Hound
Dog" single (G2WW-5935), released on July 13, 1956. Both sides
of the record topped the charts independently, a rare feat. The
single also topped all three extant Billboard charts: pop,
country & western, and rhythm & blues, the first record
in history to do so.
On September 9, with the song topping the US charts, Presley
performed an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" on the Ed
Sullivan Show hosted by Charles Laughton. After performing
"Ready Teddy", he introduced the song with the following
statement, “Friends, as a great philosopher once said...”
Elvis's first time on the Sullivan show was an event that drew
some 60 million TV viewers. During his second Sullivan Show
appearance, October 28, he introduced the song thusly (although
unable to keep a straight face). “Ladies and gentlemen, could I
have your attention please. Ah, I’d like to tell you we’re
going to do a sad song for you. This song here is one of the
saddest songs we’ve ever heard. It really tells a story
friends. Beautiful lyrics. It goes something like this.” He
then launched into a full version of the song. Elvis was shown
in full during this performance. Again, Presley drew more than
60 million viewers.
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the
United States on its first release. It was his best selling
single and starting in July 1956, it spent a record eleven
weeks at #1. It stayed in the #1 spot until it was replaced by
"Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis.
In March, 2005, magazine placed Presley's version at number
55 in its list of the Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
Rolling Stonemagazine ranked it #19 on their list of the
500 Greatest Songs of All Time- the highest ranked of Presley's
eleven entries.
A partial list of “cover” versions of Hound Dog includes:
[4]