Good choice! When I first heard her singing "Hound Dog" on the radio I bought her collected songs the same day. They interviewed one of the writers of the song, and he mentioned his writing partner came in to tell him it was a number 1 hit. "With Big Mamma Thornton?" He was a bit disappointed when told it was Elvis "but after a few visits to the bank I got over it"
I had no knowledge of Big Mamma Thornton, but discovered this version as I’m doing an online guitar course and Hound Dog is one of the beginner lessons in the accompanying book, the author suggested checking out her version too as the song is listed under Elvis, another one is That’s alright mamma, again with a suggestion to listen to the original by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, the main thing that sticks out is how much the lyrics were cleaned up in the Elvis versions, despite there being a lot of innuendo that’s quite innocent to modern ears, but must have been very risqué when released
