The very next day (July 2, 1956) after The Steve Allen Show, Elvis reported to RCA studios to cut a few sides. Yep, you guessed it, “Hound Dog” was on the agenda. It took the super-sensitive Elvis 31 takes to get just the right version of “Hound Dog” on acetate. But after 31 takes, he knew he had one that felt right.
Elvis used his recollection of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys as the template for his “Hound Dog” version, This recording session was also the first in which Elvis acted as the session producer.
Interestingly, Elvis not only rock and rolled “Hound Dog” up, but he changed the original lyrics. Elvis added in the strange line “You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine” to the Leiber-Stoller lyrics. This odd lyric, like a shake of salt in a perfect stew, morphed a raw diamond into a perfectly polished gem.
It is believed this lyric switch was originally performed by Freddie Bell and his Bellboys, but Elvis also did some lyric-switching of his own. In the “Big Mama” Thornton version, she sings, “Well they said you was high class, I can see through that.” She sings this lyric twice on her version. Elvis changed this lyric to “Well they said you was high class, but that was just a lie.” Elvis sang his revised lyric six times in his recording.
Click “Next” to see what happened in the leading up to Elvis’s song’s release.
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