IN: "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013. "Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time.

"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.  While Presley was performing "Hound Dog" on television and his record was scaling the charts, Stoller, who had been on vacation in Europe, was returning on the ill-fated final voyage of the Andrea Doria. On July 26, 1956, Leiber met the just-rescued Stoller on the docks and told him, "We got a smash hit on Hound Dog," Stoller said, "Big Mama's record?" And Leiber replied: '"No. Some white guy named Elvis Presley." Stoller added: "And I heard the record and I was disappointed. It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane...It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer--he does have some black attitudes--takes the song over ... But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record--which is R&B--and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."  By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5-1612), but it failed to chart.
QUESTION: what else is interesting about this passage?
IN: Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right.

The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut--as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.  A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousel's songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.  Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
QUESTION:
who did the choreography?