hound dog--9/25/26
Today's selection -- from Before Elvis by Preston Lauterbach. Big Mama Thornton/Willimae Smith was the original performer of the Elvis Presley hit “Hound Dog”:
“'You see the history of this and the history of that and Willie Mae's name never comes up. It's like they took a big eraser and scratched that part of history out.’ –Etta James
“In early March of 1949, less than five months after the Presley family moved to Memphis, a traveling variety show stopped in town for a four-day stint at the Palace Theatre on Beale Street. Doing business as Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Revue, it boasted in its ads of a thirty-person cast and sparkling musical comedy but mentioned only one attraction by name: ‘Willimae Smith (Sister of Bessie) The Blues Queen.’
“For Elvis, this may have been the closest he ever got to the originator of his most successful record. ‘Willimae Smith’ would soon quit the Hot Harlem Revue, drop the false sisterhood, and obtain an immortal sobriquet all her own as ‘Big Mama’ Thornton, original singer of ‘Hound Dog.’
“Deep divers into American music will inform you, correctly albeit nasally, that the King's inspiration for and arrangement of the song 'Hound Dog' came directly from a Vegas lounge act called Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys. But ‘Hound Dog’ exists solely because of Willie Mae Thornton. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote the song specifically for her and have maintained that her version remains unrivaled. Thornton's recording of ‘Hound Dog’ was one of the biggest R&B hits of 1953, selling at least a half million copies. Without Big Mama, we have no ‘Hound Dog.’ And without ‘Hound Dog,’ Elvis Presley has a different top-selling record and perhaps a different career. Most importantly, Elvis and ‘Hound Dog’ affected Big Mama's life more profoundly than any other aspect of her career. So anyone who might wish to write a book extolling the underappreciated impact of Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys has my blessing. This is the story of Big Mama Thornton.
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| Thornton c. 1955–1960 |
"'Let me explain something,’ Thornton said in a 1974 interview with Anthony Connor and Robert Neff. ‘You know what, I'm for real. But everybody comes asking me the same thing, man. It sounds like a record stuck. Yackity, yackity, yackity, yack.’ One of the interviewers replied, ‘What would you like to talk about?’ She said, ‘What I like to talk about?’ ‘Yes, that's what we're getting to, really.’ ‘I like to talk about the future,’ she said. ‘Not the past. Because the past is done and over with.’
“At that moment, Thornton had yet to reach the age of fifty, though she had survived a century in showbiz years.
“She was asked, ‘Your history is important, isn't it?’
"'Yes.’
"'It might hurt somebody,’ she chuckled.
"The interviewers took a slightly Freudian turn away from this dead end.
"'What is the happiest period in your life?’ one asked. ‘When I was asleep,’ Thornton said.
"'How about when you were awake?’
"'I just made myself happy,’ she said. ‘A lot of you don't know, but I was worried a lot of times. You don't know that though. I always kept a smile on my face. I'd always be around my friends, buy drinks, laugh. But they don't know what was going through my mind .... Cause a lot of times, man, I didn't have nothing to eat. They don't know it. I was smiling. I didn't have nowhere to stay, they didn't know that.’
“The interviewers continued to struggle. ‘I'm sorry, I'm so tired,’ one remarked.
"'You tired, man,’ Thornton snapped. ‘I'm the one that did the show. I am the one that did the show. What did you done?’
“Later, one of them asked, ‘If you were going to do it all over again,’ but she cut him off.
“'No,’ she scoffed. 'No way.'”
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