Hound Dog: A Song by Big Mama Thornton and Interpreted by Elvis Presley and Others

by Eric Weisbard

Overview

Many listeners first heard “Hound Dog” when Elvis Presley’s single topped the pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956. But some fans already knew the song from Big Mama Thornton’s earlier recording, a giant but exclusively R&B hit. In Hound Dog Eric Weisbard examines the racial, commercial, and cultural ramifications of Elvis’s appropriation of a Black woman’s anthem. He rethinks the history and influences of rock music in light of Rolling Stone's replacement of Presley’s “Hound Dog” with Thornton’s version in its 2021 “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list. Taking readers from Presley and Thornton to Patti Page’s “Doggie in the Window,” the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” and other dog ditties, Weisbard uses “Hound Dog” to reflect on one of rock’s fundamental dilemmas: the whiteness of the wail.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478027072
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	08/04/2023
Series:	Singles
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	338 KB

About the Author

Eric Weisbard is Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama and author of Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

Intro  1
1. “Doggie in the Window” and the 1950s Pop Single  13
2. Dog Ditties  27
3. “Hound Dog,” Take One: Big Mama Thornton  35
4. Elvis Presley Belatedly Records “Hound Dog”  51
5. “Hound Dog” as Influence  65
6. Interpreting “Hound Dog”  81
7. The Whiteness of the Wail  93
Outro  113
Acknowledgments  117
Notes  119
Bibliography  129
Index  139

What People are Saying About This

Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions - Francesca T. Royster

“Bringing together the music of Big Mama Thornton, Elvis, Patti Page, Iggy Pop, George Clinton, DMX, Nirvana, and Patti Smith, among others, Eric Weisbard steers us through some of the most contentious debates in the American Pop music landscape, and somehow manages to make it a joy ride. As witty as it is big hearted, Hound Dog reminds us that a favorite song—sometimes heard against the grain, can remake us and also remake worlds.”

Editorial Reviews

“Eric Weisbard has long been one of my favorite music historians and writers. His professorial love for both the high- and the lowbrow (and the latter's relevance to the trends and movements that followed), mixed with his punchy, minimalistic voice, makes a great combination.”

-- Patterson Hood, performer, writer, and Drive-By Truckers cofounder

“Bringing together the music of Big Mama Thornton, Elvis, Patti Page, Iggy Pop, George Clinton, DMX, Nirvana, and Patti Smith, among others, Eric Weisbard steers us through some of the most contentious debates in the American pop music landscape and somehow manages to make it a joyride. As witty as it is bighearted, Hound Dog reminds us that a favorite song—sometimes heard against the grain—can remake us and also remake worlds.”

-- Francesca T. Royster, author of Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions

"This is a both entertaining and informative traversal of the evolution of pop/rock, exemplified in one well-remembered song. [It] will likely appeal to both music scholars and readers investigating the intersection of race and society in the U.S."

-- Barry Zaslow Library Journal

"[Eric Weisbard] carves out an engaging and unpredictable path through the American popular music canon like a machete-wielding traveler weaving in-and-out of a well-worn forest trail. . . . His writing mirrors what I understand to be a commitment to following pathways wherever they may lead and resisting the urge to categorically define artists, sounds, and moments as the sole property of an epistemological truism."
-- Matt Brounley Journal of Musicological Research

From the Publisher