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Let It Roll

Pantheon Media

"Let it Roll" is a podcast about the history of popular music from the 19th Century to the 21st. Proud part of Pantheon - the podcast network for music lovers.

34 episodes
a few times a week
Avg 44 min
English

Episodes 34

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Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

Wednesday · 42 min
Milton Brown Mentored Bob Wills and Invented Western Swing: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 5.1
Cary Ginell on the Fort Worth bandleader who brought hot jazz to the Texas string band - and why it was Milton, not Bob Wills, who got there first.
Monday · 28 min
Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and the Swing Era: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.12
Peter Doggett on the Great American Songbook, Fred Astaire, Louis Armstrong's 1929 "St. Louis Blues," and the night in Oakland that set off the swing era.
October 30 · 42 min
Robert Johnson Revised: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.11
r. Yuri Campbell and Nate look back at Elijah Wald's case against the Robert Johnson myth - and what it teaches about audiences, genre and race.
October 28 · 41 min
Robert Johnson: Escaping the Delta: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.10
Elijah Wald on the real Robert Johnson - a hip young bluesman who sounded like the records, not a myth at the crossroads.
October 26 · 51 min
Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues of St. Louis: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.9
Kevin Belford makes the case for St. Louis as a blues capital the history books skipped - from Tom Turpin's ragtime to Lonnie Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw and the original Sonny Boy Williamson.
October 23 · 43 min
Chick Webb's Big Beat Style of Swing Led Directly to Rock 'n' Roll: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.8
Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb - the Baltimore drummer who went from Harlem's jam sessions to the Savoy throne, and the beat that pointed to rock and roll.
October 21 · 52 min
Swing King Chick Webb Brought Ella Fitzgerald to the World: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.7
Jeff Kaufman on the four-foot drummer who broke his back as a child, ruled the Savoy Ballroom, outplayed Benny Goodman and made Ella Fitzgerald a star.
October 19 · 46 min
How Kansas City Vice Birthed Kansas City Jazz: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.6
Chuck Haddix on Boss Pendergast's wide-open town - Bennie Moten, the territory bands, Basie at the Reno Club, Big Joe Turner behind the bar and a teenage Charlie Parker.
October 16 · 50 min
Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, Josh White & Jean Ritchie and the first Folk Revival: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.5
Dave Thompson on the Child ballads leaving the family porch for the record shop - Lomax, MacColl, Jean Ritchie, Josh White and a teenage Judy Collins.
October 14 · 56 min
Rhythm & Blues from Bessie Smith to Louis Jordan: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.4
The late Ed Ward on the blues queens, the record collectors who rewrote the history, the first guitar heroes, and the greatest forgotten Black star in American music history.
October 13 · 39 min
Ted Gioia Talks the Songs Jazz is Built On: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.3
Ted Gioia on the jazz standards - what makes one, where they came from, and why jazz stopped talking to the pop charts.
October 9 · 50 min
Record Men From Thomas Edison to John Hammond & Chris Blackwell: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.2
Gareth Murphy on a hundred years of the people who decided what got recorded - and why the record business keeps dying and coming back.
October 7 · 44 min
Bing Crosby's Swing Brought Him Superstardom: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 4.1
Gary Giddins on the jazz singer from Spokane who learned from Jolson and Armstrong, put the microphone on a stand, and became the voice of America.
October 5 · 38 min
The Jazz Age of Pop From the ODJB to Bing Crosby: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.12
Peter Doggett on the record that sounded like a riot, the microphone that made singers whisper, and the radio that made music private.
October 2 · 46 min
Thomas A. Dorsey Went From 'It's Tight Like That' to 'Precious Lord': Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.11
Garrett Cash on the blues piano player who put the brush arbor back into the Black church - and became the father of gospel music.
September 30 · 41 min
Ralph Peer Brought Blues, Jazz, Country, and Latin Music to Record: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.10
Barry Mazor on the record man who found the audience first and the music second - from "Crazy Blues" to Bristol to "Besame Mucho."
September 28 · 50 min
The Beginnings of Country Music According to Ken Burns: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.9
James Porter on what Ken Burns got right about Bristol, and the hillbilly stars he left on the cutting-room floor.
September 25 · 35 min
Ed Ward on The Bristol Explosion: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.8
Ed Ward on the fortnight in Bristol that didn't invent country music - it invented the country music business.
September 23 · 52 min
The Carter Family popularized the Child Ballads and Burl Ives built a new tradition: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.7
Dave Thompson on what happened when 500-year-old British ballads met Ralph Peer's newspaper advert, a swing band, and the House Un-American Activities Committee.
September 21 · 1 hr
Paul Whiteman Was the King of Jazz in 1925, to Music Critics: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.6
Elijah Wald on why white America named Paul Whiteman “The King of Jazz” and considered him its most innovative artist, and on what happened to his reputation after.

Showing 1–20 of 34 episodes