I loved the fifties masters set. I know nothing about ripping cd's to itunes, sorry. Is it the big box, or the more recent small box, because I had no problems with my set.
And THAT is the magic talent of Elvis Presley. That is what sets him apart from most interpreters. He makes any song believable. He conveys emotion, he COMMUNICATES. His finds a style and presentation that best suits the song and its subject matter. It is innate.
yea i think the small box. mine is from 1992, the box is approximately 12 inches tall and 7 inches wide ... I had no problems with that
Having already had the 1st LP and Elvis Golden Records, both his 2nd LP and Loving You were BIG letdowns for me as I expected ALL his 50s LP would be top notch. But I was relieved that the rest of his 50s LPs were mostly top notch, Christmas Album, For LP Fans Only, A Date With Elvis, King Creole and Gold V2, all top notch.
"Heartbreak Hotel" - What to say about this one? One of his most emblematic songs and perhaps the most significant for British fans as for most of them, it was the very first Elvis Presley song that they had ever heard. "Well since my baby left me - dah - dow" coming into their lives like lighning bolt and everything changed. "My Baby Left Me" is fantastic. One of favourite early rockabilly songs. Apart from those two, outside of the albums, I really don't go for all those soppy doo-wop ballads.
"Don't Be Cruel" One of the artworks for the U.S. vinyl release Single by Elvis Presley B-side "Hound Dog" Released July 13, 1956 Format 45 rpm 78 rpm Recorded July 2, 1956, RCA Victor Studios, New York City, New York Genre Rock and roll, rockabilly Length 2:04 Label RCA Victor Songwriter(s) Otis Blackwell Producer(s) Stephen H. Sholes Elvis Presley Elvis Presley singles chronology "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" (1956) "Don't Be Cruel" (1956) "Shake, Rattle and Roll" (1956) "Don't Be Cruel" is a song recorded by Elvis Presley and written by Otis Blackwell in 1956.[1] It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2004, it was listed #197 in Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song is currently ranked as the 173rd greatest song of all time, as well as the sixth best song of 1956, by Acclaimed Music.[2] "Don't Be Cruel" was the first song that Presley's song publishers, Hill and Range, brought to him to record.[3] Blackwell was more than happy to give up 50% of the royalties and a co-writing credit to Presley to ensure that the "hottest new singer around covered it".[1] But unfortunately he had already sold the song for only $25, as he stated in an interview of American Songwriter. Freddy Bienstock, Presley's music publisher, gave the following explanation for why Elvis received co-writing credit for songs like "Don't Be Cruel." "In the early days Elvis would show dissatisfaction with some lines and he would make alterations, so it wasn't just what is known as a 'cut-in'. His name did not appear after the first year.[4] But if Elvis liked the song, the writers would be offered a guarantee of a million records and they would surrender a third of their royalties to Elvis'."[5] Presley recorded the song on July 2, 1956 during an exhaustive recording session at RCA studios in New York City.[1] During this session he also recorded "Hound Dog", and "Any Way You Want Me".[3] The song featured Presley's regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar (with Presley usually providing rhythm guitar), Bill Blackon bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. The producing credit was given to RCA's Stephen H. Sholes, although the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs in this session by selecting the song, reworking the arrangement on piano, and insisting on 28 takes before he was satisfied with it.[1] He also ran through 31 takes of "Hound Dog".[3] The single was released on July 13, 1956 backed with "Hound Dog".[1] Within a few weeks "Hound Dog" had risen to #2 on the Pop charts with sales of over one million.[3] Soon after it was overtaken by "Don't Be Cruel" which took #1 on all three main charts; Pop, Country, and R 'n' B.[1] Between them, both songs remained at #1 on the Pop chart for a run of 11 weeks tying it with the 1950 Anton Karas hit "The Third Man Theme" and the 1951/1952 Johnnie Ray hit "Cry" for the longest stay at number one by a single record from late 1950 onward until 1992's smash "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. By the end of 1956 it had sold in excess of four million copies.[1][3] Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1956.[6] Presley performed "Don't Be Cruel" during all three of his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in September 1956 and January 1957.[1] "Don't Be Cruel" went on to become Presley's biggest selling single recorded in 1956, with sales over six million by 1961.[1] It became a regular feature of his live sets until his death in 1977, and was often coupled with "Jailhouse Rock" or "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" during performances from 1969.[1] -------------------------------------------------- Such a great song, so well sung and arranged. The perfect single of the time and an absolute smash hit. This song pretty much solidified Elvis into the music scene in the US. I always found Ed Sullivan's summing up of Elvis at the end of this interesting. I assume it was an attempt to quell the Elvis is a smutty hip swiveller thing ... Coming from Ed Sullivan at this point in time I'm sure that would have had a huge impact. Perhaps some American folks can give us some info about that as well as the song.
Hound Dog Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution".[13]George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release".[178] Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards."[179] While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise."[178]Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog",[180] and had a copy in his personal record collection.[181][182] Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys).[183] According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.[10] Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a "witty multiracial piece of sygnifyin' humor, troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo",[164] Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning' – Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan.[184] It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys … The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'."[185] According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'."[186] Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys.[186] The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form.[36] After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.[36] Presley's first appearance in Las Vegas was in the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino from Monday, April 23 through May 6, 1956, as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to Freddy Martin and His Orchestra and to comedian Shecky Greene.[187] However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.[188][189] At that time, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing as a resident act in the Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge in the Sands Casino since 1952,[174][158] were one of the hottest acts in town. Presley and his band decided to take in their show, and not only enjoyed the show, but also loved their reworking of "Hound Dog", which was a comedy-burlesque with show-stopping va-va-voom choreography.[190] According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."[191][192] Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore recalled: "When we heard them perform that night, we thought the song would be a good one for us to do as comic relief when we were on stage. We loved the way they did it. They had a piano player [Russ Conti] who stood up and played – and the way he did his legs they looked like rubber bands bending back and forth. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote the song for Big Mama Thornton, but Freddie and The Bell Boys had a different set of lyrics. Elvis got his lyrics from those guys. He knew the original lyrics but he didn't use them"."[193] When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's drummer D. J. Fontana admitted: "We took that from a band we saw in Vegas, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. They were doing the song kinda like that. We went out there every night to watch them. He'd say: 'Let's go watch that band. It's a good band!' That's where he heard 'Hound Dog,' and shortly thereafter he said: 'Let's try that song.'"[194] When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album."[195] According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened."[196] In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis".[197] In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label;[91] however, it was not released as a single until 1957.[198] It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).[199][200] Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel.[155][201] Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel."[202] Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis,[203] during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000.[204] Like Bell and the Bellboys, Presley performed the song "as comic relief, basing the lyrics and his 'gyrations' ... on what he had seen in Vegas."[205] Presley's performance, including the lyrics (which he sometimes changed) and the gyrations always got a big reaction.[206] It became the standard closer until the late 1960s.[204][207] By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon[208] and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers. There were many riots at his early concerts. Scotty Moore recalled: "He'd start out, 'You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog,' and they'd just go to pieces. They'd always react the same way. There'd be a riot every time."[209] Presley's then manager Bob Neal wrote: "It was almost frightening, the reaction ... from teenage boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him." In Lubbock, Texas, a teenage gang fire-bombed Presley's car.[210] Some performers became resentful (or resigned to the fact) that Presley going on stage before them would "kill" their own act; he thus rose quickly to top billing.[210] At the two concerts he performed at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, one hundred National Guardsmen were on hand to prevent crowd trouble.[211] Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that: Whatever Presley got from hearing Freddy Bell's version, which was sometime in April of 1956, lasted a couple of months only. In fact he sang it 21 times, live, at concerts and on television, using Bell's vocal arrangement but which also included his own blues version, at half speed, and only at the end, until he recorded it with what was undeniably, his own arrangement based not just on Scotty Moore' tremendously modern guitar work but his own rage and disgust at what had taken place the night before, at Steve Allen' s Tonight show, when he was forced to sing the song to a bassett hound, and dressed in tails while simultaneously facing an audience of 40 million. And once he recorded it, it was his version which he chose to deliver, although by the end of 1956, he'd added inflections from the Thornton version as well."[212] Milton Berle Show[edit] Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program,[213] and his eighth appearance on national television[214] since his debut on January 28, 1956, on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show which was then recorded and broadcast from the CBS-TV studio in New York City.[215] For the first time Presley appeared on national television sans guitar. Berle later told an interviewer that he had told Elvis to leave his guitar backstage. "Let 'em see you, son", advised Uncle Miltie.[216] By this time, Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo to the song, and D.J. Fontana had added a hot drum roll between verses of the song. However, in performing "Hound Dog" "Elvis sings the first line like Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who repeat "hound dog" behind the lead singer: Elvis sings "hound dog" and his "second voice" repeats "hound dog." By the third verse, he sings the phrase like Thornton."[217] An upbeat version ended abruptly as Presley threw his arm back, then began to vamp at half tempo, "You ain't-a nuthin' but a hound dog, cuh-crying all the time. You ain't never caught a rabbit …" A final wave signaled the band to stop. Elvis pointed threateningly at the audience, and belted out, "You ain't no friend of mine."[218] Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and exaggerated and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast.[219][220] Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance, and the next day, controversy exploded.[221] According to Robert Fink, while "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a "witty multiracial piece of sygnifyin' humor, troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo ... nobody got the joke ... The display was not taken as parody. 'Hound Dog' confirmed mainstream America's worst fears about rock and roll, and sparked nationwide vituperation; for the first time, Presley ... was attacked in the media as a sexual exhibitionist with no musical talent."[164] This performance of "Hound Dog" "triggers the first controversy of his career. Presley sings his latest single, "Hound Dog," with all the pelvis-shaking intensity his fans scream for. Television critics across the country slam the performance for its "appalling lack of musicality," for its "vulgarity" and "animalism." The Catholic Church took up the criticism in its weekly organ in a piece headlined "Beware Elvis Presley." Concerns about juvenile delinquency and the changing moral values of the young found a new target in the popular singer. After Berle's show, Ed Sullivan, whose variety show is one of television's most popular, declared that he would never hire Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Tonight Show, resisted pressure from NBC to cancel the performance, promising he would not allow the singer to offend.[214] Cultural theorist David Shumway wrote, "Berle's network, NBC, received letters of protest, and the various self-appointed guardians of public morality attacked Elvis in the press."[222] TV critics began a merciless campaign against Elvis, making statements that he had a "caterwauling voice and nonsense lyrics" and was an "influence on juvenile delinquency" (despite the fact that when he started the movements, most of the audience laughed at it), and began using the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis".[190] Steve Allen Show[edit] Elvis next appeared on national television singing "Hound Dog" on The Steve Allen Show on July 1. Steve Allen wrote: "When I booked Elvis, I naturally had no interest in just presenting him vaudeville-style and letting him do his spot as he might in concert. Instead we worked him into the comedy fabric of our program … We certainly didn't inhibit Elvis' then-notorious pelvic gyrations, but I think the fact that he had on formal evening attire made him, purely on his own, slightly alter his presentation."[223][224] As Allen was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and songs such as "Hound Dog", he smirkingly presented Elvis "with a roll that looks exactly like a large roll of toilet paper with, says Allen, the 'signatures of eight thousand fans,'"[225] and the singer had to wear a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound.[226] Although by most accounts Presley was a good sport about it, according to Scotty Moore, the next morning they were all angry about their treatment the previous night.[227] For 7 hours from 2.00pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Steve Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard."[228] According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic."[228] While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members.[229] Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that."[230] However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog".[231] As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."[230] In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones ... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: " I don't know either," ... "Ahh … I was actually pissed off to tell'ya the truth." ... "It was just … Sometimes in the studio you do it too many times and you go past that peak. Like three takes before was really the one you should use. That was it. We had done the thing, ("Hound Dog"). I think it was printed somewhere that we did it about forty or sixty … I don't know, give or take. But if someone was counting it off, just a couple notes and we stop, that's a take. You know? 'Take Two.' But I was frustrated for some reason and in the second solo I just went, BLAH."[232] Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage."[233] The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog".[234] Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV."[235] In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that "Hound Dog" is "notable for an unremitting level of what can only be called rock and roll dissonance: Elvis just shouts, leaving behind almost completely the rich vocal timbres ("romantic lyricism") and mannerist rhythmic play on added syllables ("boogification") that Richard Middleton identifies as the cornerstones of his art. Scotty Moore's guitar is feral: playing rhythm he stays in the lowest register, slashing away at open fifths and hammering the strong beats with bent and distorted pitches; his repetitive breaks are stinging and even, when he begins one chorus in the wrong key, quite literally atonal ... And the Jordanaires, a gospel quartet who would provide wonderfully subtle rhythmic backup on the next song Elvis recorded at the session, 'Don't Be Cruel', are just hanging on for the ride during this one, while drummer D.J. Fontana just goes plumb crazy. Fontana's machine-gun drumming on this record has become deservedly famous: the only part of his kit consistently audible in the mix is the snare, played so loud and insistently that the RCA engineers just gave up and let his riffs distort into splatters of clipped noise. The overall effect could not be more different from the amuse, relaxed contempt of Big Mama Thornton; it is reminiscent of nothing so much as late 1970s white punk rage – the Ramones, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols.[236] In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'."[237] After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956. "Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956.[238] Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve.[239] Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided. While Presley was performing "Hound Dog" on television and his record was scaling the charts, Stoller, who had been on vacation in Europe, was returning on the ill-fated final voyage of the Andrea Doria. On July 26, 1956, Leiber met the just-rescued Stoller on the docks and told him, "We got a smash hit on Hound Dog," Stoller said, "Big Mama's record?" And Leiber replied: '"No. Some white guy named Elvis Presley." Stoller added: "And I heard the record and I was disappointed. It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better."[21]:90[240] Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics.[11] For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me."[17][21] Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over … But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."[241] By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5-1612),[56]but it failed to chart. Despite refusing publicly to invite Presley to perform on his popular Sunday television evening program, after the ratings success of his appearance on The Steve Allen Show, Ed Sullivan agreed to pay $50,000 for Presley to appear three times. "Hound Dog" was performed during each of those programs. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (hosted that evening by Charles Laughton). After performing "Ready Teddy", Presley performed an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog", introducing the song with the following statement: "Friends, as a great philosopher once said…" This performance garnered "a 43.7 and 82.6 rating and share, respectively, which meant 60–62 million were watching, the largest audience in history up to that time, although the share in itself has never been beaten, or even equalled, to this day."[242] In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee was disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations, which are certainly most distasteful to me, are violative of all that I know to be in good taste."[243] In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog": "When Hound Dog was released—and believe me 'released' is the word—I sat up and took rather special notice. Lo these many times I have heard bad records, for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience."[244] Race added: "My particular interest in Presley's 'Hound Dog' does not lie simply in the fact that I don't like it. The point about the whole thing is that, by all and any standards, it is a thoroughly bad record",[245] lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", through defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".[246] During his second Sullivan show appearance on October 28, Presley introduced the song thusly (although unable to keep a straight face): "Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please. Ah, I'd like to tell you we're going to do a sad song for you. This song here is one of the saddest songs we've ever heard. It really tells a story, friends. Beautiful lyrics. It goes something like this." He then launched into a full version of the song. Elvis was shown in full during this performance.[247][248] In the third and final show on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". Despite Presley being filmed only above the waist, at the end of the show Sullivan looked to the audience, saying "I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy, and wherever you go, Elvis, we want to say we've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. So now let's have a tremendous hand for a very nice person!" This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.[249] In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece."[250] Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'".[251] In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic."[252] Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect … we can recognize defining moments of crystallization … The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll."[253] In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?' … It was just … it was just there."[254] Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992.[255] It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956.[256] "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone.[257][258] In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".[17] Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood."[259] By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it."[260] However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."[91] In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.[266] Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".[69] ------------------------------------------------- Hound Dog is just one of those songs that everyone knows. Probably one of the most iconic rock and roll songs there is, sitting right alongside Rock around the clock in fame, and probably just above it in terms of rocking. Is this the performance that started the "shoot him from the waist up" stuff?
Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel. You don't get better than this as a single, IMO. My favorite single of all time, by any artist.
Don't Be Cruel - I'm not keen on this and especially The Jordinaires cheesy backing vocals. Hound Dog - One of the best things ever recorded. Vocals, guitar, bass, drums,... everything is top notch. I love the way Scotty just slashes at this guitar as he comes into the second solo. Awesome record.
Funny story about Don't Be Cruel. I was good friends with Arthur Kane (RIP), and he told me that he based his bass playing on a number of New York Dolls songs around the Don't Be Cruel bass line. Arthur was a huge Elvis fan (we had countless discussions about Elvis) and his favorite album was King Creole. Arthur was down on his luck a bit in later years so I gave him a copy of the King Creole CD, I can't tell you the number of times I walked by his place and could hear it being played.
it was bizarre reading that it was initially a parody and I guess with all the kick back they just pushed it to the next level. I always appreciated Scotty, but doing this really accentuates what an important part of the sound he was
Hilarious to read the criticism of "Hound Dog" from 1956. It was like a handful of people thought it was bordering on obscene. I can understand the Blue Moon Boys feeling a little hoodwinked about Elvis singing to a literal hound, but it was all in good fun and brought out some personality from Elvis.
That second guitar break is positively explosive, especially the beginning as you've mentioned. I still get goose bumps when I hear it, and I've heard it a million times.
I have the long box from 1992. There are 3 or 4 songs that seem to be an issue. I think the message is something like “duplicate” something or other.
ok ... It was my first real Elvis discs, I never noticed any issues, but it surely is possible. By that stage I was in my own band and working full time so my days of sitting on a beanbag in my headphones with my eyes closed were pretty much over. Every chance I missed something, but I was always happy with the set.
Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel - I do not know I can add anything here as this was just a great two-headed monster. Hound Dog was a rip-roaring smash that featured D.J. Fontana almost attacking the song with his "machine gun" like riff. Don't Be Cruel features such warmth and unique phrasing by Elvis that it simply re-defined what popular singing would be like for the next 60 years or so. Elvis sounded like he was having so much fun in the studio, but all those many takes indicate he was also quite the worker bee in that recording studio as well, something music critic Dave Marsh would point out many years later in that great 70's box set booklet. Wow, we are in the middle of a music revolution and Elvis is at the front and center of it!
I’m way behind, but I wanted to mention the components of this song. First, DJ Fontana’s drumming is great here. He even changes it up during the bridge to something I don’t know the name of, but it works. Scotty’s guitar playing is perfect, pushing the song along. And although he just chords during the bridge, it fits. Bill Black’s bass is a highlight at the beginning. Then there’s Elvis. Listen to the line “one of these mornings...” after the bridge. He puts a vibrato on just the “...ings” part of “mornings”! And it’s fast. Great song.
