![]() ![]() One critic compared his performance to the sort of "hootchy-kootchy.previously identified with the repertoire of the blonde bombshells of the burlesque runway" ( source). Ed Sullivan said it was simply "unfit for family viewing" ( source).īut the controversy only made Elvis a more attractive television commodity. The kids in the crowd went wild, but so did the press in the days that followed. He started out "Hound Dog" up-tempo but after the third verse, he slowed it down for a steamy, hip-pumping final verse. Apparently indifferent to the sort of firestorm that would eventually surround Presley's performance style, he told the gyrating Presley that without his guitar, the audience would be able to get a better look at him. During rehearsals, Berle encouraged him to perform the song Elvis had decided to play-"Hound Dog"-without his guitar. His first two singles with the new label-" Heartbreak Hotel" and "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"-reached #1 on the pop and country charts.īy the time Presley showed up for his second appearance on Berle's show in June 1956, he was a rapidly rising star. By the end of the year, all of the major labels wanted Elvis in November, RCA won the bidding war and bought his contract from Sun Records. During 1955, he'd parlayed regular appearances on the Louisiana Hayride (a country-western show broadcast via radio throughout the South and Midwest) into a sizable regional reputation. Presley would release the song as the B-side of his 1956 single "Don't Be Cruel." But before he went into the studio, he test-drove the song on the Milton Berle Show.Ī pair of invitations from the king of television comedy had climaxed a career-making year for the young Presley. ![]() That's where Elvis heard it, liked it, and asked if he could record it. It was a crowd pleaser when they performed in Las Vegas in 1956. Now street legal, the song was given a rock and roll rhythm and put on the Bell Boys' playlist. They replaced the racy with the ridiculous, turned a declaration of no more sex ("You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more") into a reprimand for poor hunting skills ("Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine"). Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys did exactly that in 1955. Thornton's recording soared to the top of the R&B charts, but it needed to be cleaned up before it would be ready for mainstream audiences. In the hands of Thornton, it was a thunderous and lyrically racy song about some no good hound dog of a man about to be kicked to the curb: Whatever it eventually became, it was written as a conventional blues number. Leiber and Stoller would also go on to build an impressive list of credits, including the monster hits "Jailhouse Rock" and "There Goes My Baby," and they would carve out something of a specialty niche with gimmicky, half-serious songs like "Yakety Yak" and "Searchin'.'' But "Hound Dog" wasn't one of these. Her "Ball and Chain" would eventually make its way into Janis Joplin's legendary repertoire, but Thornton's first hit was "Hound Dog," recorded under the Peacock label in 1952. Thornton, a big-voiced R&B artist, was also a songwriter herself. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller gave the song to Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton in 1952. As co-writer Jerry Lieber admitted decades later, the song's most famous line was "just code for 'You ain't nothin' but a m-f-r.'" ( Source)Įlvis Presley made the song famous, but it wasn't actually written for him. For all the song's silliness, though, there's a not-so-tame edge to the song's back story. ![]() Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" is one of the most celebrated songs of all time, but let's face it, it's a pretty ridiculous song. ![]()
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