US R&B legend Big Mama Thornton is one of the forgotten "originators", to use Dr John's term for Professor Longhair, of rock'n'roll. The late Alabama native, who died almost exactly 38 years ago on July 25, 1984, recorded the first version of Leiber and Stoller's Hound Dog in 1952. After the record was released in 1953, it reached the top spot on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues Records Chart and sold 2 million copies. It was her biggest hit, but it paled in comparison to young Elvis Presley's version, which sold more than 10 million copies and helped propel Presley to global fame.
Thornton's version features her trademark growling vocals, and she stays true to the song's message, which she told several interviewers, was actually about a "freeloading gigolo", so the song is actually about female empowerment, not Elvis' pelvis twerks. She wrote and performed her own songs as well as covering others, perhaps most famously allowing a young Janis Joplin to record her song Ball And Chain, which Thornton had recorded in the early 1960s. Joplin's career took off and later she would say that Thornton's voice had inspired her to sing.
Last year, Canadian label Justin Time Records released what I first thought was a reissue of her first Vanguard studio album Sassy Mama, which was recorded in 1975 but in fact, despite the confusing title, it is a live recording of a 1977 show in Montreal. Don't let that put you off though because this is an excellent sample of one of her live shows, from a period when she was still on the top of her game (alcohol and hard living led her to a premature death at 57 and she died in poverty).
