‘Hound Dog’: How rock ‘n’ roll was shaped by a couple of teenagers
The roadmap of rock ‘n’ roll is a mystic one shrouded in fog, but ‘Hound Dog’ is undoubtedly a pivotal cat’s eye on its journey that glows with more purpose than most. It is a solid dose of swagger and attitude and not much more. That’s not to say that it lacks substance, just that whether it was performed by Elvis Presley, Big Mama Thornton or any of the million others, it walloped a new kind of charisma to the forefront of music. And it was a couple of teenagers who dreamed it into existence.
Youth movements underpin our culture. You could even argue the rule of thumb that nothing truly momentous has ever been saddled with a mortgage. When you look at the rise of pop culture, the pivotal steps have all been propagated by pockmarked teenagers or those in their early 20s. Bob Dylan was 21 when he changed the world with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
Furthermore, The Beatles were considered elder statesmen of the scene when they cracked stereo sound with Sgt. Peppers before hitting the second half of their 20s. And the bulk of N.W.A were only 23 when they added a pointed impetus to the hip-hop movement in 1988.
Thus, it seems fitting that arguably the most iconic rock ‘n’ roll anthem ever was also written by teenagers. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were only 19 years old when the prowess of Big Mama Thornton slapped their respective chops. “When we saw Big Mama, she knocked me cold. She looked like the worst, biggest, saltiest chick you would ever see,” Leiber recalled. So, he raced back to Stoller’s apartment and the pair – filled with the awestruck adrenaline of this new rocking music – rattled off ‘Hound Dog’ in 15 minutes flat.
The pair were born in Baltimore and Queens, New York, respectively, but they met as freshmen at Los Angeles City College in 1950. Only a few months after meeting, in a manner that only youthful friendships can muster, they had a song in the hands of Jimmy Witherspoon titled ‘Real Ugly Woman’, it was enough of a minor hit to give them confidence.
Then, in 1952, their fortunes took a huge turn when 15 minutes of work resulted in ‘Hound Dog’. They gave the song to Big Mama Thornton, considering she had inspired it, and she landed a huge hit with it in 1953, three years before Elvis Presley released it. However, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll liked it so much that he hired them to write a slew of other songs for him, including classics such as, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘Loving You’.
So, thanks to one fateful blues performance, the flame of inspiration was lit under two young kids just trying to get by, and suddenly, music would never sound the same. And it was nearly even more visceral and punk than ‘Hound Dog’.
“I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase ‘Dirty Mother Furya’,” Leiber told Richard Bushkin in 1999. “I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn’t find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air”.
