Elvis Presley – Hound Dog

The Big E was at his best in the fifties before the Army and films changed him. This is the song that I first heard by him and it made me a fan when I was around 5 or so. The song brought up images to kids and was easy to understand in a kid’s sort of way…and it rocked. 

I think it’s one of the best rock singles ever released. Do you want a double A-side? Try Hound Dog backed with Don’t Be Cruel. It doesn’t get much better than that. 

Those early Elvis songs were magical. Hound Dog, That’s Alright, I Forgot To Remember To Forget, Mystery Train, Heartbreak Hotel, Don’t Be Cruel, and the list goes on. Many artists have played rock and roll but it’s hard as hell to beat these primal songs. I think one of the reasons is they were mostly recorded live in a studio. They don’t have 100 overdubs…just simplicity at its best and it hits its target. 

Hound Dog was first recorded by Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton and was a number 1 rhythm & blues hit in 1953. Her voice is incredible in this song. She nailed it and so did Elvis. Elvis’s version is a little faster than Thornton’s version…but that made room for her dynamic voice. 

Elvis Presley’s version didn’t do too bad. It peaked at #1 on the Hot 100, #1 on the Billboard R&B Charts, and #2 in the UK in 1956 (I could not find Canada). The song was written by teenagers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. They would go on to write many more chart hits for everyone…including Elvis with Jailhouse Rock. 

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller:  “We’d actually written ‘Hound Dog’ 90 percent on the way over in the car. I was beating out a rhythm we called the ‘buck dance’ on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis’s house and Mike went right to the piano… didn’t even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song. We took the song back to Big Mama and she snatched the paper out of my hand and said, ‘Is this my big hit?’ And I said, ‘I hope so.’

Next thing I know, she starts crooning ‘Hound Dog’ like Frank Sinatra would sing ‘In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning.’ And I’m looking at her, and I’m a little intimidated by the razor scars on her face, and she’s about 280-320 pounds, and I said, ‘It don’t go that way.’ And she looked at me like looks could kill and said – and this was when I found out I was white – ‘White boy, don’t you be tellin’ me how to sing the blues.’ We finally got through it.

Johnny brought Mike back in the room and asked him to sit down at the piano, which was not easy because Johnny had this female piano player who was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. They finally exchanged seats and did the song the way it was supposed to sound. And that was one of those where we said, ‘That’s a hit.’ And I thought immediately: We both said it, it’s gonna put a hex on it!”

Hound Dog

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeYou ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeWell, you ain’t never caught a rabbitAnd you ain’t no friend of mine

Well, they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieYeah, they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieYeah, you ain’t never caught a rabbitAnd you ain’t no friend of mine

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeYou ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeWell, you ain’t never caught a rabbitAnd you ain’t no friend of mine

Well, they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieYeah, they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieWell, you ain’t never caught a rabbitAnd you ain’t no friend of mine

Well, they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieYa know they said you was high-classedWell, that was just a lieWell, you ain’t never caught a rabbitAnd you ain’t no friend of mine

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeYou ain’t nothin’ but a hound dogCryin’ all the timeWell, you ain’t never caught a rabbitYou ain’t no friend of mine

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Elvis Presley – Hound Dog”

      1. My feeling is that it’s just like everything after WWII it was new, it was theirs & it brought them together. As much as the establishment allowed for that in the mid to late 50’s up to that point. We’ve been living off of the post WWII fumes for a long time us ‘Gen Xer’s & beyond. You are right about the differences in the Mets & Dodgers now than in that classic 7 game NLCS in ’88. The Mets were the dominant dangerous team full of talent in ’88 & the Dodgers were the scrappy, hot team then. It’s the opposite this time around. It should be an excellent series. I hope it’s the Yankees & Dodgers again in the Series. Lol.

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      2. I totally agree about after WWII,,,,Carl you should write some about pop culture!
        Yea it is opposite and that is what bothers me lol. No…I have confidence in the offense…the question is…can that pitching hold up?

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      3. Hey Max if I can land with a couple of the entities that I’m hoping could bring me later this year or early next year in to their publications/newspapers I may try to venture out into that stuff. But, at 60 I’m not clued in that much to the current scene. I’ve always wanted to do a definitive history of Rock & Roll. There was a radio special from ’81 that was very, very detailed & about 20= hours or so. I’d love to do that once I can get back in the ‘business’ & make some contacts & do that as a podcast/documentary. You’d be on my list of folks to be a part of it. But, 1st things 1st…get hired. Take care of my Mother (my brother & I) & do very good work so I can stay in the business. But yes I have that as a goal Max.

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      4. Oh no Carl…modern pop culture hardly exists to me…I’m talking older… I tell you what… If you ever want to write something on older pop culture…I’ll publish it and link your site back into it. For instance… you want to write up a sports movie or something like that…I’ll publish it and like I said…link you…like I did the Kinks stuff to other people.
        I’m up for it Carl! If that happens about the podcast just give me the word!

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      5. Absolutely Max! I’m down man…I just need a steady paycheck & I need to finish my career that I left prematurely & went on & did other things until 2 years ago when I got a clue & realized the obvious. As you know my age seems to the main issue with these editors but, I think that I’m about to get hired. I’m certainly down with doing what you suggested & a podcast I think that I may have some folks who would invest, one of them that you’ve heard of. Give me a few months to sort out this thing with our Mother & resettle somewhere or wherever I’ll be covering sports for a newspaper.

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  2. I grew up with the Elvis version – we had that double-A side single. I first heard Big Mama in the 60s and realized it was a whole different song – not just the difference between Chicago and Memphis, or blues and rockabilly, but the original is about sex and that element is not in the Elvis version. The blues purist in me poo-poohed the Elvis version for years but now I realize it is like Certs – “two, two, two songs in one.”

    Of course, Elvis did get more slyly sexual in lyrics with “Jailhouse Rock”.

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    1. Yea you are right…it is two different versions of it. I didn’t hear the Thorton version until probably 10 years ago sad to say. I have fallen for it as well…but I still like both.

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  3. Definitely a classic & a 7″ that rivals the best of The Beatles in terms of pure double-sided popularity. To me, Elvis sounds right, Thornton’s sure doesn’t but then again I’ve heard the Elvis version for about 50 years before I ever heard hers, so no wonder it sounds ‘off’ to me

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    1. Yea…you would probably have to appreciate them as two different styles or really songs! Elvis did a completely different version.
      That was a great single though…my gosh…both sides a winner.

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  4. We have a big hit,” greets Jerry Leiber his friend Mike Stoller on July 27, 1956, who just returned from a freighter on a trip to Europe. “Which one?” he asks uncertainly. “Hound Dog,” says Jerry. “The Big-Mama-version?” “Nah, some white kid named Elvis Presley.” Stoller astonished: “Elvis, who?”

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  5. It was nice to hear the Big Mama version again. She is associated with Elvis and Janis, but never made the same fame on her own. Buck dancing is a folk dance that originated among African Americans during the era of slavery. It is mentioned in Uncle John’s Band in the line, “It’s a buckdancer’s choice my friend, better take my advice.”

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    2. Good info Jim, and the Big Mama version stands up still, but the Elvis take is the one that took the song up into the stratosphere. Once E starts a’swivelling you can see exactly why all the pastors at the pulpits and the headmasters at their assemblies and the Chairmen-and Chairwomen- of the PTAs thought Rock’n’Roll was the Devils music.

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  6. While “Suspicious Minds”, “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto” – all post ’50s songs – are among my favorites by Elvis, I agree his best years were the ’50s before he entered the Army. Just watching his moves while performing is incredible – it’s like you’re looking at an early version of Michael Jackson!

    “Hound Dog” is a true classic. I also love the killer rendition by Big Mama Thornton. That artist was a true force of nature.

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    1. Oh I did like some of the late sixties and early seventies Elvis and of course the Comeback Special…but the 50s…he was dangerous and a live wire…then Parker turned him into a more entertainer….and then we got songs like Clambake.
      Yea I like both versions here….two different takes.

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  9. I remember her version because my older cousin had the 45, as well as the one from E. Hearing those early tunes takes me back to the innocence of the 1950s. I think ‘Return To Sender’ is one of his best. The guitar with the tremolo adds so much.

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    1. As much as I love Beatles music…I can see why this era influenced them and everyone. They kept it simple…the way rock and roll should be.

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  11. No point adding much more, it has all been touched on. But in retrospect the 50’s HAD to happen after the dourness and exhaustion of WW2. The GIs who came back were happy to get back to a nice safe secure 9-5 humdrum life, but their kids were growing up fast and they wanted more than bow-ties and crew-cuts, or safe ankle length skirts and sweet ribbons in their hair, they wanted to kick up their bobby-socked heels. They craved bright lights, garish colours- Cineramascope Technicolor!!! They wanted loud fun music, V8s, rumbling exhausts, soaring flashy chrome fins. They didn’t know it but they were primed for a teen revolution and it all really kicked off with that slick-haired kid with a great voice. Not forgetting the Chucks and Little Richards but it was a black and white world in some very real and unfair ways then.

    I said ‘no point in adding more’ and then I went and rambled on and out came this. So much for saying jack Max!

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    1. Obbverse…when you are right you are right… Ah the V8’s still call me! What a changing time that was in history…and not just in pop culture. Elvis set The Beatles up to take it further.

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    1. Yea I can’t believe I never covered this one… oh yea… some bad songs came out from those movies… to be fair… some good ones as well

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      1. Viva Las Vegas is probably top for me. My oldest sister was always watching that movie every time it was on TV. I had it burned into my brain.

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