There’s a remarkable scene in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film ‘Elvis’ — a film full of remarkable scenes — where blues shouter Willie Mae Thornton is singing ‘Hound Dog’ in an empty Memphis club. Her stretched and growling voice floats out an open window onto Beale Street; catching the ear of a 20-year-old Elvis Presley. Elvis smiles at the lyrics (about a woman kicking a gigolo out of her life) and speeds away in the electrician truck he drives for a living.
Two years later — both in real life and the film — Elvis releases ‘Hound Dog’ as a single (actually the B-side of ‘Love Me Tender’). Besides selling 10 million copies, this one song changes the direction music if not the culture of the second half of the 20th century.
History doesn’t record if Elvis ever heard Thornton singing ‘Hound Dog’ in real life. He was certainly familiar with her music though, and owned a copy of her single, released by Peacock Records in 1952 (her B-side was ‘Night Mare’). And while the scene in the film is meant to be inspirational, many reviewers felt this was another clear example of “white expropriation of black culture.”
If this seemed new, it wasn’t — Elvis was accused of this the minute his ‘Hound Dog’ hit the airwaves. He was also accused of it back in 1954, when he released his very first single, ‘That’s All Right,’ a song previously written by African American Arthur Crudup.
Certainly not an unheard of practice (i.e. racist two-time governor of Louisiana Jimmie Davis’s theft of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ from Oliver Hood), this isn’t what Elvis did.
Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton belted out blues numbers in nightclubs while shinning shoes during the day. She began recording her own songs in 1950. ‘Hound Dog’ was her biggest hit, selling over half-a-million copies in 1952. Unlike her other songs though, Thornton didn’t write this one.
Her ‘Hound Dog’ was written by two white teenagers — Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. After hearing her sing at a friend’s house, they wrote the song for her to record. They also produced the record themselves.
Elvis purchased this record, listening to it “over and over, seeming to hear something that no one else could hear.” It never occurred to him to record himself, until he saw a different and much dirtier version being sung by Freddy Bell and The Bellboys at a Vegas night club. He recorded his version on July 2, 1956. After 30 takes (exasperating his band) he chose to release the 28th one.
Love or hate Elvis — love or hate ‘Hound Dog’ — this is a song Elvis copied from no one. Music critics noted that Presley had a habit of refusing to settle for what others had done; his versions would surpass them all. Decades later, music historians support this, writing Elvis “sung with such an intensity that [he] wipes out everything that had come before.” And with ‘Hound Dog, ‘he “gave everything he had — more than anyone knew was there.”
‘Hound Dog’ quickly became “the most litigated song in music history”— but little of that had to do with Elvis. Although she sold half-a-million copies, Thornton saw very little money from it. Her manager (a white man pretending to African American) forged copyright authorship of it, which created a lawsuit from Don Robey (owner of Peacock Records) who also claimed copyright (both earning lawsuits from Leiber and Stoller — the actual authors of the song).
The largest amount of lawsuits though didn’t come from cover versions, but from ‘answer songs’ — a song which answers or refutes the lyrics of the original song. Sam Phillips (owner of Sun Records and the first to record Elvis) had released half-a-dozen answer songs. He was sued so much it bankrupted him, forcing him to sell Elvis’s contract to RCA.
Learning that Elvis recorded ‘Hound Dog’ only after seeing their performance, Freddy Bell and the Bellboys tried to sue him. This backfired, since they had not sought permission to perform it from Leiber and Stoller.
Who, in the end, disliked what Elvis had done to their song: “It sounded like nonsense.”
Mike Selby, BA, MLIS, is Programs & Community Development Librarian at Cranbrook Public Library
