"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", ranked at 318 in the 2021 iteration of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which ranked number 19 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, but was excluded from the revised list in 2021 in favor of Thornton's version; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks—a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films.
Background and composition On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before and, after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes.George Moonoogian, in James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 80. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass".Richard Crouse, Who Wrote The Book Of Love? (Random House Digital, Inc., 2012). In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it."David Fricke, "Leiber and Stoller: Rolling Stone's 1990 Interview With the Songwriting Legends", Rolling Stone (April 19, 1990; reprinted: August 22, 2011). Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face", conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air."Jerry Leiber, in Richard Buskin, Insidetracks: a first-hand history of popular music from the world's greatest record producers and engineers (Spike, 1999) p. 40. Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him".Rick Kennedy and Randy MacNutt, Little Labels – Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music (Indiana University Press, 1999) p. 74. the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber. The song, a Southern blues lament,Freya Jarman-Ivens, Oh Boy!: Masculinities and Popular Music (Routledge, 2007) p. 188. is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":Nicholas Barber, "Elvis Presley's pedigree chum", The Independent (October 29, 1995).
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man",Michael Billig, Rock and Roll Jews (Syracuse University, 2001):43. and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre."Iain Ellis, Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists (Counterpoint Press, 2008) p. 44. R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.Galen Gart and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography (Big Nickel Publications, 1990) p. 54.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment.Dave Gritten, "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011). Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "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."Martin Chilton,"Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53) Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitfield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education.Stephen J. Whitfield, In Search of American Jewish Culture (UPNE, 2001) p. 162. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Leiber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation. According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".Blues singer ‘Big Mama’ Thornton had a hit with ‘Hound Dog.’ Then Elvis came along
Recording Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill"Steve Sullivan, "Hound Dog (1953)" in Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 1 (Scarecrow Press, 2013) p. 466. or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time,Larry Beniciewicz, "Remembering Johnny Otis 1921–2012: Part 1: The Early Years (2012) Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario DelagardeCraig Morrison, "Rock 'N' Roll", The Blues Encyclopedia, eds. Edward Komara and Peter Lee (Routledge, 2004) p. 839. (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.Johnny Otis, Upside Your Head! (Wesleyan University Press, 1993):xxi.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out.Wayne Robins, A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record (Routledge, 2016). Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues.Cleothus Hardcastle, "The Backpages Interview: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller", Rock's Backpages (June 30, 2001). After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that 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: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own."In Jim Windolf, "Stand By Them", The New York Times (June 12, 2000). Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk", are common in blues music.William R. Ferris, Blues from the Delta: The Roots of Jazz (Capo Press, 1978) pp. 107–108.Antoine Hennion, contrib., in 1789–1989: musique, histoire, démocratie, Vibrations, musiques, médias et sociétés, Vol. 3 (Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1992) p. 773. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".Michael T. Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis (University of Illinois Press, 2005) p. 190.