This is a 1965 video of Big Mama Thornton singing "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog." She was the first to record the song, in 1951, and it reached No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1953. In those days, "rhythm and blues" was looked down on as "black music." Elvis did his cover and turned the song into a massive hit on the pop charts in 1956. White disc jockey Alan Freed had coined the term "rock and roll" for the genre; free of the "black music" stigma, rock and roll became THE music for a young white audience.
H/T Denise Oliver Velez in the Daily Kos article. "Before Elvis and Janis there was Big Mama Thornton."
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