“Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote "Hound Dog" as a twelve-bar blues, and Big Mama Thornton got to it first, cutting it in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952. Peacock Records released it in late February 1953, and it became the only hit she ever had: more than 500,000 copies sold and 14 weeks on the R&B charts, seven of them at number one.

More than 250 versions followed, one of them far more famous than hers, but the original has kept its standing. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame counts it among its 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll, the Grammy Hall of Fame took it in in February 2013, and the 2021 edition of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time ranked her record at 318, picking it over the better-known cover.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.