An American tune

Downstairs in the Goodnow-Pearson building in Gardner, you take a 45 rpm record a listening booth and, for the two minutes and and change, be transported into the world of rock-and-roll.
The listening booth at Goodnow's wasn't the first place I'd heard Hound Dog. Maybe it was the radio in the Studebaker pickup. I didn't have a radio in my room yet. My parents kept the clock radio tuned to WBZ/WBZA, which had a regular lineup of disc jockeys and played a lot of rock and roll.
Most likely, though, I heard Hound Dog at the homes of one of the older kids in the neighborhood, the ones who had their own record players and stacks of 45s from Elvis, Little Richard, Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, and more.
Hound Dog was the first Elvis song that I knew. The longer and more complex story of how important he was or wasn't is best left for another day.
Just think about a little and very white kid in an enclave of first and second generation immigrants listening to a white kid from the south cover a song of anger and betrayal written by a couple of Jews and first heard when sung by black woman and you'll be thinking about America.