OTD: 5th June

Elvis Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on 5th June 1956.

For the first time Presley appeared on national television without his guitar. Berle later told an interviewer that he had told Elvis to leave his guitar backstage. "Let 'em see you, son", he'd advised. The upbeat performance ended abruptly as Presley threw his arm back, then began to vamp at half tempo, "You ain't-a nuthin' but a hound dog, cuh-crying all the time. You ain't never caught a rabbit..." A final wave signalled the band to stop. Elvis pointed threateningly at the audience, and belted out, "You ain't no friend of mine." Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and exaggerated and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast.

Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance, and the next day, controversy exploded. According to Robert Fink, while "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a "witty multiracial piece of sygnifyin' humor sic, troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo ... nobody got the joke ... The display was not taken as parody. "Hound Dog" confirmed mainstream America's worst fears about rock and roll, and sparked nationwide vituperation – for the first time, Presley was attacked in the media as a "sexual exhibitionist with no musical talent."

Television critics across the country slammed the performance for its "appalling lack of musicality," for its "vulgarity" and "animalism." The Catholic Church took up the criticism in its weekly organ in a piece headlined "Beware Elvis Presley." Concerns about juvenile delinquency and the changing moral values of the young found a new target in the popular singer.

After Berle's show, Ed Sullivan, whose variety show was one of television's most popular, declared that he would never hire Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Tonight Show, resisted pressure from NBC to cancel the performance, promising he would not allow the singer to offend.

TV critics began a merciless campaign against Elvis, making statements that he had a "caterwauling voice and nonsense lyrics" and was an "influence on juvenile delinquency" (despite the fact that when he started the movements, most of the audience laughed at it), and began using the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis".

The song was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and first recorded by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton in 1952. "Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. Presley's remains the best known version and is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time – about 10 million copies globally, making it his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution".

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