Elvis, Big Mama Thornton, Doja Cat, and the Long Legacy of Hound Dog
b'Baz Luhrmann\\u2019s hit box office hit biopic Elvis has spurred new interest in the music of The King. Elvis Presley\\u2019s streaming subscribers has grown by two million listeners on Spotify since the film\\u2019s release according to ChartMetric, and if you\\u2019re hearing a lot more \\u201cHound Dog\\u201d these days, it might be partially due to the success of Doja Cat\\u2019s hit song \\u201cVegas,\\u201d which updates \\u2013 and interpolates \\u2013 the song for contemporary listeners.\\xa0\\n\\nDoja Cat\\u2019s version samples from the original 1953 \\u201cHound Dog,\\u201d sung by Big Mama Thornton and written by acclaimed songwriter team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (whose credits also include Presley\\u2019s \\u201cJailhouse Rock\\u201d and Ben E. King\\u2019s \\u201cStand By Me\\u201d). The original is a sauntering blues song with a raunchy tale about a two timing man; Presley, who is frequently said to have stolen the song from Thorton, instead sings a tepid lyric about an actual dog, and radically changes the groove.\\xa0\\n\\nBut in an interview with Rolling Stone, Stoller says Presley didn\\u2019t steal the song at all. Rather, he adapted one of many covers of the song, specifically the version performed by the Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. Their \\u201cHound Dog\\u201d borrows its upbeat rhythm from a song responding to the original \\u201cHound Dog,\\u201d titled \\u201cBear Cat.\\u201d It\\u2019s a similar rhythm to the one we hear on the contemporary Doja Cat version, \\u201cVegas,\\u201d which heavily features samples of Thornton\\u2019s original vocals: listening closely reveals a song that synthesizes a complicated music history by uniting the best parts of the many versions of \\u201cHound Dog.\\u201d\\xa0\\n\\nListen to the latest episode of Switched On Pop and uncover the long legacy of \\u201cHound Dog.\\u201d\\n\\nSongs Discussed\\n\\nBig Mama Thorton - Hound Dog\\n\\nElvis - Hound Dog\\n\\nDoja Cat - Vegas\\n\\nEsther Phillips - Hound Dog\\n\\nJack Turner - Hound Dog\\n\\nRufus Thomas - Bear Cat\\n\\nFreddie Bell and the Bellboys\\n\\nT.L.C. - No Scrubs\\n\\nSporty Thievz - No Pigeons\\xa0\\n\\nW.C. Handy - St. Louis Blues\\n\\nDuke Ellington - Conga brava\\n\\nSister Rosetta Tharpe - Didn\\u2019t It Rain\\n\\nFats Domino - Mardi Gras in New Orleans\\n\\nDave Bartholomew - Country Boy\\n\\nLittle Richard - Slipping\\u2019 And Sliding\\u2019\\n\\nJack Harlow - Dua Lipa\\n\\nFuture - Puffin on Zootiez\\n\\nHitkidd, Gorilla - F.N.F. (Let\\u2019s Go)\\n\\nBad Bunny - Despu\\xe9s de la Playa\\n\\n\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices'