Hound Dog
Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Chart - UK No. 1 US No. 1

The names of Leiber and Stoller can be found on some of the best known tunes in popular music history. They wrote standards like Smokey Joe’s Café , Kansas City and Riot in Cell Block Number Nine and they famously wrote for the Coasters, penning classic sides like Yakety Yak, Poison Ivy and Charlie Brown. As a duo they scored world-wide hits like Stand By Me for Ben E King and on Broadway for the Drifters. Perhaps more than anything however they are remembered as the song writing team who penned classic Elvis hits like Loving You, Jailhouse Rock and of course Hound Dog. As one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever it’s been covered more times than Elvis had hot and greasy dinners which is quite a lot really! Sammy Davis Junior, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Rockin Dopsie and the Twisters a little Cajun effort and Jerry Lee Lewis are just some of the artists who recorded versions.

Jerry Leiber was born in Baltimore in 1933. Mike Stoller was born a few weeks later in Belle Harbour in New York. The families of both moved to the west coast of America shortly after the war and the two boys first met at Fairfax high school in Los Angeles in 1950. Immediately these two clean living Jewish boys bonded over their love of music and instantly began writing together, using their early obsession with the blues. Leiber wrote the words and Stoller the music.

It was blues musicians that the duo aimed their first song writing efforts at, writing for the likes of Charles Brown and Jimmy Witherspoon. It was when they hooked up with Los Angeles singer, writer and promoter Johnny Otis (whose big hit was Willie and the Hand Jive) that they’re fortunes really changed. It was through him that they met blues singer Big Mama Thornton. She was a big, proud and righteous woman and the boys decided to write a song for her that really put a wrong doing man in his place, the song they came up with was Hound Dog. It was a real sneering put down of a would be big guy "you never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine!" Here’s her version which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953

Willie Mae Thornton or Big Mama as she was known died in LA on 25th July 1984. Her version of hound dog was from July 1953.

Our story then moves on three years from 1953 and relocates to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where Mike Stoller was aboard a luxury cruise ship the Andrea Doria. He’d just finished touring Europe and was on his way home when the liner sank, Stoller only just made it home to New York on a rescue freighter. As he pulled into dock his lifelong work partner Jerry Leiber was pacing the dock not with worry but with unbridled excitement. "we’ve got a smash hit" Stoller recounts his friend shouting "which one?" he hollered back "hound dog" Leiber replied. "The Big Mama Thornton version?" Stoller asked. "Nah some white kid called Elvis Presley" said Lieber shaking his head, at this Stoller was stumped "Elvis who?" he famously said!

Elvis and his people had heard the Mama Thornton version and loved it, and the fledgling king of rock and roll had recorded the song to be released alongside the Otis Blackwell song Don’t Be Cruel as a double A side single in August 1956. It stayed at number one for an amazing 11 weeks and it was on the Milton Berle TV in the states that Elvis famously performed the song with all his trademark pelvic movements. From the outcry of the public after this show, America’s other great TV host Ed Sullivan, issued a statement to say he would never have the King on his show, something the growing fame of the Memphis flash soon ensured he’s have to go back on!

Famously he also performed the song on comedian Steve Allen’s show and was forced to perform warbling away to a drowsy looking Bassett hound while wearing a tuxedo! A humiliating moment that Elvis would never forget!

For Leiber and Stoller the success of the record was proof that the record buying public were finally getting into black music.

When the millions began to pour in from Hound Dog, Johnny Otis took Leiber and Stoller to court claiming they had failed to credit him as a co writer, funny how he waited until it was a huge hit before saying anything isn’t it? he lost his case in court.

Today the song is often referred to as a classic example of the young and vibrant Elvis - a real slice of young rocker at the top of his game. It still sounds exciting today!

Written by Ralph McLean