Cavalcade For July 2

The death this week of guitar legend Scotty Moore brought many music fans back to the first run of iconic Elvis Presley singles or to the famed 1968 “comeback” TV special, on which Scotty helped Elvis find his musical center once again. Scotty’s haunted, distant sounding guitar on “Heartbreak Hotel” was inspiration enough for teenage Keith Richards to drop everything and make music his mission.

But unlike his young schoolmate Mick Jagger (and scores of other aspiring teen frontmen) who wanted to “be” Elvis, Keith was drawn to the lean chops of Scotty Moore: a sideman but a key support in the architecture of this new house of sound. Pull Scotty out of the mix, and the house comes tumbling down. I did just that, with the record that blew it all wide open, “Hound Dog.”

Just for fun, I edited Scotty’s jaunty, surprising solos out of the finished record, and stitched it back together as wall-to-wall Elvis. It still rocks, it still rolls, but it comes off more as novelty than revolution. Had a leaner, tamer, country-flavored guitar sound been substituted, the effect would have been worse, making the song worthy of Steve Allen’s ruthless parody. (The original "Tonight Show" host actually had Elvis perform the song on his show while serenading a droopy-faced pooch, Boo.)

Those jagged Scotty Moore solos validate Elvis’ nerve and raw energy. They mirror his fearlessness and underscore the sexual aggression. It’s hard to take out of context, but when Elvis was new, his “manliness” was questioned. Many saw his classically pretty face, shock of floppy hair, and body gyrations as being feminine, even androgynous. No doubt, the King was a Babe at the beginning, but the world hadn’t tuned in to that gender frequency yet.

As a whole, “Hound Dog” is a miraculous couple of minutes. There is no recording quite like it (although Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” set off similar fireworks, minus the sex). The aural effect of the dry, close-miked sound was akin to what a close-up shot accomplishes in film.

“Hound Dog” is a full song in close-up, every detail filling the sonic projection. Had “Hound Dog” been recorded in a more generous space, or if the arrangement were ornamented needlessly, it would have collapsed as a one-off novelty tune. The magic of the record we know is in the tight sonic envelope: the hand claps, the machine-gun blasts of drumming, and the “cold-chorus” intro. Most songs had some instrumental lead-in, a verse, or a stanza. But “Hound Dog begins with the chorus and it impales you with the hook from the first electric second.

All of my life, I have been fascinated by records that stand up to not just repeated, but endless plays—a lifelong playlist in perpetual rotation. “In The Mood” by Glenn Miller is an example from before rock. After Elvis, the path was clear for “She Loves You," “Satisfaction," “Respect, “Stayin’ Alive,” “Billie Jean,” and “All Apologies." All of those songs are in that class.

“Hound Dog” might just be the most compelling example of all. It’s a rocket ship that still goes to the moon every time. It’s a pure product of the technology: tape recorders, ribbon microphones, tube electronics, razor-blade editing, getting it right in a take. “Hound Dog” might just be the two most exciting minutes of recorded sound we have, and it reveals something with each spin. Without Scotty Moore, it’s safe to say that what followed would have been very different.

That's "Cavalcade," live on Saturday nights from 8-10 p.m. and on-demand in the Weekend Archives at wfuv.org.