Elvis performing 'Hound Dog' on The Milton Berle Show
(5 June 1956): click here to watch on YouTube
I.
If you have even vague intentions of writing an intermittent series of posts on great moments in rock 'n' roll history that also happened to be televised - thereby becoming lodged forever in the cultural memory - then there is really only one moment, one place, and one date to begin: Elvis Presley's sexually-charged (yet clownish) performance of 'Hound Dog' on The Milton Berle Show, June 5th, 1956 ...
II.
This wasn't Elvis's first appearance on national TV - it wasn't even his first appearance on The Milton Berle Show (that had been two months earlier, on the 3rd of April). But it was his most notorious and the moral uproar provoked by his live performance that evening made him the most divisive figure in American popular culture: loved by teenagers, hated and feared by their parents and other figures of authority, including members of the clergy, the press, and even the FBI [1].
After the June 5th appearance, things would never be the same again for the then 21-year-old Elvis. Indeed, things would never be the same again for any of us. For no one had seen a performer like Presley before and everything that was to follow in the world of popular music can to some extent be traced back to this moment.
Not that anyone could ever repeat this performance: it was, philosophically speaking, an event, i.e., something that does not make sense according to the rules of the situation, something that is genuinely revolutionary and which changes everything.
But what, it might be asked, is it that makes Elvis's performance that evening so particular?
Well, there are doubtless several factors involved, as even simple events lasting less than three minutes are a complex unfolding of chaos. The choice of song, for example, plays an important part: 'Hound Dog' is a strangely provocative twelve-bar blues number [2], even when sung in a more conventional manner and without Presley's outrageous dance moves and suggestive use of a stand up microphone.
Then there's the fact that Elvis looks so perfect: physically and stylisically. You can look and dress very differently and be equally astonishing, but you can't look or dress any sharper or cleaner than Elvis looks and dresses here.
Miraculous events - and those charismatic individuals who embody them - are, however, often not accepted as things for which we should all be grateful. Indeed, those who fear change and newness will always react with horror when someone like Elvis comes along.
Thus, we should not be too surprised by the critical reaction which mostly followed a similar line: Elvis lacked any discernible singing or musical ability ... he was a bumping and grinding burlesque performer ... he had dragged popular music into the depths ... he was a crude sexual exhibitionist who incited his teenage audience to riot ... etc., etc.
Unfortunately for his critics, their condemnation only made his fans love him more and by whipping up a storm of controversy they ensured ticket sales for his shows went through the roof and that 'Hound Dog' - released as a single on July 13th - went on to sell ten million copies globally and top the US charts for eleven weeks.
Notes
[1] Some readers might think I'm making that last bit up about the FBI, but, as a matter of fact, the Bureau kept a fairly extensive file on Elvis, consisting of press cuttings, outraged letters from members of the public, and various other documents. Although never officially under investigation, Presley was regarded by some within the Bureau as a danger to national security, arousing as he did abnormal sexual urges in American youth. Ironically, Elvis regarded J. Edgar Hoover as a hero and even asked President Nixon if he could become an FBI Special Agent.
[2] 'Hound Dog was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike
Stoller. Originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in August 1952, it was released on Peacock Records in February the following year (selling over 500,000 copies). Elvis's version, however, which has a very different feel and differet lyrics, was based on a sanitised send-up of the song by the popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell and the Bellboys (released in 1955).
