Barflies.net :: Music

In 1955, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys recorded a song called "Hound Dog." While performing in Las Vegas that year, a young up-and-coming singer named Elvis Presley caught their act, liked the song, and decided he would record the song too.
Presley's record was a hit and he became a huge star. Bell's record was not a hit and he continued playing casino lounges.
Sometime around 1990, I witnessed Freddie Bell's act in a casino lounge in Reno. He did some of the expected lounge standards and told raunchy, stale jokes like this one:
"While the astronauts were up in space drinking Tang, I was down in New Orleans getting some poon!" While half the audience groaned and the other half struggled to do the math, he punctuated his point with "Poon!" (rimshot) "Tang!" (rimshot).
He preceded his version of "Just A Gigolo/Ain't Got Noboby" with an angry diatribe against David Lee Roth, who he accused of stealing "his" song.

Freddie Bell died on February 11, 2008. He may have been the last of the old-school Vegas lounge singers. He was certainly the last of something.