The Original Hound Dog

Big Mama Thornton boasted one of the most electrifying voices in the history of recorded music, and this CD is the perfect introduction. Hound Dog - The Peacock Recordings is cheaper easier to find, but this collection has seventeen of Hound Dog's eighteen tracks plus five more essential ones. Tracks such as Hound Dog, I Ain't a Fool Either and I Smell a Rat show off Big Mama's marvelously fierce, attitudinal side. She was probably the one 50s singer as fiery as Howlin' Wolf, and her work predicts all of the "Angry Woman" singers of the past several decades. Nightmare and How Come reveal an aching vulnerability. I can't recommend this CD any higher. Big Mama deserves to be far better known than she is.