The story behind the song
Hound Dog was written by two 19-year-old white, Jewish songwriters, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. They presented the song to Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton.
Thornton’s version came out in 1953 and turned into a huge success, staying at the top spot on the Billboard R&B chart for 14 weeks straight. Even though it was super popular, Thornton only earned around $500 from selling the record.
Two years after Thornton’s release, the song’s words were changed from a cheating man to an actual dog. Not what the songwriter’s intended. It was sanitized for a White group called Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in 1955. They peformed the song at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas.
Jerry Leiber was really upset about these changes, saying that the new lyrics “didn’t make any sense” because a song that was originally about a woman getting rid of a broke guy had been changed into a song about a dog that wasn’t good at hunting.
Back in April 1956, a Elvis Presley got booked for a brief stay at the New Frontier Hotel. During that time Elvis went to the Sands lounge where he heard Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform Hound Dog.
According to the “Las Vegas Review Journal” Elvis approached Bell on the strip and asked, “Would you mind if I recorded the song?” According to Bell, he gave Elvis his blessing. In July 1956, Elvis and the Blue Moon Boys went into the studio to record the exact lyrical and musical framework the Bellboys had created.
Elvis performed the song in front of what people thought was about 40 million people watching. During the slower part at the end of the song, he set his guitar aside and did some really suggestive hip movements in slow motion live on television. The performance made a huge deal across the country, with people criticizing him and calling him “Elvis the Pelvis.” They said he was ruining American kids.
On June 5, 1956, Elvis performed Hound Dog in front of what was estimated as 40 million viewers during his second appearance on The Milton Berle Show. During the slower part at the end of the song, he set his guitar aside and did some really suggestive hip movements in slow motion live on television. The performance made a huge deal across the country, with people criticizing him and calling him “Elvis the Pelvis.” They said he was ruining American kids.
On July 1, 1956, in an attempt to tame Elvis’s image after the backlash, host Steve Allen forced Elvis to wear a formal tuxedo and sing Hound Dog directly to a real, droopy-faced basset hound perched on a stool.
On July 2, 1956, the day right after what happened with the basset hound, Elvis showed up at RCA Studios in New York feeling frustrated and focused. He insisted on doing 31 different takes of the song because he wanted to nail that fast, intense, hard-hitting sound he had in his head. Finally, he got exactly what he was looking for, and they recorded his raw, energetic live performance onto vinyl for good.
AT A GLANCE
LYRIC CHANGES