There are a lot of versions of "Hound Dog" before Elvis Presley did his

DanBC
2023-06-20T15:51:34Z

The original version of this thread was going to be a list of songs sung by Elvis, along with versions that were released by other people before him. For example:

Burning Love

Arthur Alexander 1971 YouTube

Elvis Presley 1972
YouTube

Nice and simple. Not to say "this is great, this is terrible", or "look, he stole it", but just because it's interesting to compare versions.

But then I looked at Hound Dog and wow there are a lot of covers. I got most of these from the Wikipedia article, which is pretty in-depth about this song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)

So, here's a short list. I'd be interested to know what you think - I love Big Mama Thornton's version, I love Elvis's version, but I'm not that keen on any of the others here.

Hound Dog

Big Mama Thornton 1952 YouTube

Freddie Bell and the Bellboys (date uncertain) []YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJQ-fDb4M4s)

Elvis Presley 1956 YouTube

And here's a bunch more before Elvis did his version:

Little Esther 1953 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVUQ_lmoyJ4

Jack Turner and his Granger County Gang 1953 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbAotf6ac0

Billy Star 195X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuDuuPWVL0s

Betsy Gay 1953 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNG-0L-mldc

Eddie Hazlewood 1954 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN23peWBe3g

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