A couple of musicians re celebrating birthdays.  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band keyboard man Roy Brittan is 63, while sax player and guitarist Johnny Colla of Huey Lewis and The News is 60 today.

On this day in 1956, Elvis Presley recorded Hound Dog with The Jordanaires.  It took 31 takes before a satisfactory master was laid down.  Six years later, Jimi Hendrix was honorably discharged fro the Army’s 101st Airborne Paratroopers, after breaking his ankle during his 26th and final parachute jump.

The night before recording Hound Dog, Elvis sang the song live on the Steve Allen Show.  By year’s end the single had sold over 4,000,000 copies.

Here’s that July 1 performance with Elvis and a very unwilling hound dog.