Hound Dog (song) - Bernie Lowe, Freddie Bell and The Bellboys

Bernie Lowe, Freddie Bell and The Bellboys

Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, and asked Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys to rewrite the lyrics to appeal to a broader radio audience. "Snoopin' round my door" was replaced with "cryin' all the time," and "You can wag your tail, but I ain't gonna feed you no more" was replaced by "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine." This new version of "Hound Dog" was recorded on Lowe's Teen Records in 1955 (TEEN 101 with "Move Me Baby" on the flip side, two of four songs the group did with Lowe that year). The regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded both a tour, and an engagement in the Las Vegas Sands Hotel's Silver Queen Bar. The Bellboys' Vegas version of the song was a comedy-burlesque with show-stopping va-va-voom choreography. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense".

Others were also performing the song at that time. Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955 told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Bell and Lowe.