Before he became a movie idol and Las Vegas headliner, Elvis Presley was heavily influenced by African American blues artists, who are the subjects of a great new book: Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King, by Preston Lauterbach. Big Mama Thornton is the most well-known, having recorded "Hound Dog" in 1953, three years before Elvis. It was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who were teenagers at the time, at the request of Johnny Otis. Here are some tracks (mostly audio) by a few of those classic performers.
Little Esther also released a cover of "Hound Dog" in 1953.
A cover Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's Alright Mama" was Elvis's first release.
Elvis is said to have gotten some of his stage moves from Calvin Newborn:
Calvin's brother Phineas was more jazz oriented:
Elvis also covered Junior Parker's "Mystery Train"
Rev. Herbert Brewster was the pastor of Memphis's East Trigg Baptist Church where Elvis attended as a child. Music begins at 1:10
More Big Mama:
More Arthur Crudup:
More Junior Parker
After Elvis died, reporters asked Big Mama Thornton how it felt that she made $100 off of singing Hound Dog, while Elvis made millions. She said, "At least I'm still around to spend my $100."
Posted by: cory | January 18, 2025 at 06:23 AM
You fooled me -- at first I assumed you were going in a different direction on this one. "Hound Dog" might be worth a Saturday post of its own. During our recent trip to Memphis, we enjoyed both visiting both Sun and Stax. Sam Phillips successfully tailgated on Big Mama Thornton's success by releasing a knockoff tune, "Bear Cat," by Rufus Thomas.
Bear Cat became Sun's first national hit, and also nearly ruined him. He was successfully sued and it cost him a lot of money.
Two pieces of irony emerged. One of course, was Elvis's hit with Hound Dog, recorded not long after his recording contract was sold to RCA. The other irony -- Rufus Jones was a one hit wonder at Sun, but became a big star at the other legendary Memphis label, Stax.
Posted by: Dave G | January 18, 2025 at 03:00 PM
If you're interested in this kind of thing, I recommend Andrew Hickey's extraordinary podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.
https://500songs.com/author/olsenbloom/
Posted by: Paul Mac | January 18, 2025 at 07:00 PM