“Hound Dog” became so closely associated with Elvis Presley that it is difficult to imagine anyone else owning the song. His 1956 recording helped turn the 21-year-old singer into a rock and roll sensation and eventually became part of the longest No. 1 run of his career. Yet Elvis was not the first person to record it. The song had already been a major hit years earlier.
Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote “Hound Dog” in 1952 when they were only 19. Even more remarkably, Leiber later recalled that the song took them roughly 12 minutes to write. They created it specifically for blues singer Big Mama Thornton after seeing her rehearse and immediately deciding they wanted to capture her powerful personality in a song.
Hear Big Mama Thornton’s Original “Hound Dog”
Thornton recorded “Hound Dog” before Elvis and took it to No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart in 1953, where it remained for seven weeks. Her performance was raw, bluesy and very different from the version millions would later associate with Elvis. The song was already the biggest commercial success of Thornton’s career before Elvis ever touched it.
Elvis actually encountered a reworked version through Freddie Bell and the Bellboys while performing in Las Vegas. He began performing that interpretation himself, but when it came time to record “Hound Dog” for RCA in July 1956, he became obsessive about getting his performance right. Leiber and Stoller remembered Elvis repeatedly demanding another take until he was satisfied.
Watch Elvis Presley Turn “Hound Dog” Into a Rock and Roll Spectacle
By the time Elvis performed “Hound Dog” on The Ed Sullivan Show in October 1956, the song had become part of the phenomenon surrounding him. His movements generated screaming crowds and controversy while his “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel” single spent an extraordinary 11 consecutive weeks at No. 1. The Ed Sullivan performance shows just how completely Elvis had transformed an existing blues song into something audiences now connected with him.
Elvis Presley went on to record “Jailhouse Rock,” “All Shook Up,” “Suspicious Minds” and countless other favorites, but few songs became as inseparable from his image as “Hound Dog.” What makes its history even more remarkable is that the story did not begin with Elvis at all. Listen to Big Mama Thornton first, then watch Elvis perform it and hear how one song written by two teenagers in roughly 12 minutes became a landmark recording for two very different artists.