Most listeners first heard Hound Dog when Elvis Presley's single topped the pop, country, and RB charts in 1956. But some fans already knew the song from Big Mama Thornton's earlier original recording, a giant hit but exclusively RB. In iHound Dogi Eric Weisbard examines the racial, commercial, and cultural ramifications of Elvis's appropriation of a Black woman's anthem. He rethinks the history and influences of rock music in light of iRolling Stonei's replacement of Presley's Hound Dog with Thornton's version in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Taking readers from Presley and Thornton to Patti Page's Doggie in the Window, the Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog, and other dog ditties, Weisbard uses Hound Dog to reflect on one of rock's fundamental dilemmas the whiteness of the wail.