Let It Roll EXTRA

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Joe Yanosik, author of “A Consumer Guide to the Plastic People of the Universe,” joins host Nate Wilcox to tell the whole story: the tapes smuggled out of the country in the mid-seventies, the album pressed in Ireland and released in London by two expatriates without the band’s knowledge, the copy that made...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Yoko Ono does not get a fair shot. She is one of the most famous people alive and one whose name-ID-to-listener ratio is possibly the worst of any massive celebrity and most of what is believed about her is either wrong or beside the point. Host Nate Wilcox welcomes Madeline Bocaro author of “ In Your Mind:...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Season 3 of Let It Roll: From the Beginning… opens with host Nate Wilcox talking to Robert W. Harwood about “ I Went Down to St. James Infirmary ” - a book about one song and about how confidently the history of a song can be wrong. Almost everything widely believed about “St. James Infirmary” turns out to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Host Nate Wilcox welcomes Bob Stanley to discuss “ Let’s Do It: The Birth of Pop Music, A History ” - the prequel to his own earlier book, “ Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé ”. That one started at 1955 and ran forward through the rock and roll era. This one goes back and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Most of the other musical movements we’ve covered at Let It Roll were all too eager to cut deals with corporate America to reach a mass audience. Today’s topic is the one subgenre that loudly and proudly proclaimed it wanted nothing to do with corporate America or even mainstream American culture. Between 1...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com In 1950 the Weavers were the biggest vocal group in the country. “Goodnight, Irene” sat at number one for thirteen weeks. They were also unabashedly left-wing, and within three years they could not get a booking anywhere in America. Jesse Jarnow - author of “ Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Swinging London was sold as the moment the English class system finally cracked. The Kinks came out of Muswell Hill and never believed a word of it. Mark Doyle - author of “ The Kinks: Songs of the Semi-Detached ” - joins host Nate Wilcox to discuss the band’s relationship to British culture, to African Ame...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Host Nate Wilcox welcomes James Kaplan to discuss his book “ Irving Berlin: New York Genius ” — a life that runs from a Lower East Side childhood to a fifty-year career at the centre of American popular song, and then to almost thirty years of silence. Jerome Kern’s line is the one everybody quotes, and it...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Host Nate Wilcox was joined again by Garrett Cash for the second episode of the Holy Roll series which we’re recasting as part of our Let It Roll: From the Beginning… series, this time on the two people who essentially invented gospel composition as a published, professional craft — Charles Albert Tindley a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com Ted Gioia returns to discuss “ The History of Jazz ,” and host Nate Wilcox takes him all the way back to the start of the book, to the prehistory of the music. There is general agreement that jazz came out of New Orleans; there was a period when people disputed it, and a time when the Soviet Union claimed i...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses minstrelsy and blackface and includes an 1890s recording by George Washington Johnson, presented as historical evidence. Racial slurs occur in the billing given to the performer and in the discussion around it. In this episode, author Peter Doggett and host Nate Wilco...

In this episode, author Alanna Nash and host Nate Wilcox discuss “Dolly: The Biography,” one of the first critical biographies ever written about a country superstar — and what Nashville made of it. Nate and Alanna discuss Dolly Parton’s humble origins and her almost supernatural drive; the evening at her first house outside Nashville that produced both “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in a s...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com In this episode, author Peter Doggett and host Nate Wilcox discuss “ ⁠Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music⁠ .” TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses minstrelsy and blackface and includes a recording of a 1902 ‘coon song,’ presented as historical evidence. Racial slurs...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox interviews Gary Giddins to discuss the opening section of his classic book “ ⁠Visions of Jazz⁠ “ including discussions of vaudeville greats Al Jolson and Bert Williams, W.C Ha...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox interviews Henry Sapoznik, one of the compilers of “Protobilly: The Minstrel & Tin Pan Alley DNA of Country Music.” Nate asks Henry about the genesis of the Protobilly CD comp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox is joined by Garrett Cash to continue their discussion of the evolution of American Gospel music with a look at Afro-American music in the late 19th Century. Source materials...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, Nate is joined by Author, David Wondrich, to discuss his overlooked classic: “ Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot, 1843–1924. ” In this episode, David takes Nate way way back into the h...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox interviews author Dale Cockrell about the musical ferment bubbling under the New York demimonde in the 1800s as described in his book ⁠”Everybody’s Doin’ It: Sex, Music, and D...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re starting the second seasons of our Let It Roll relaunch in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox interviews Emily Bingham, the author of ⁠”My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song⁠ .” Host Nate Wilcox asks Emily to detail th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes back Dave Thompson to continue discussing Dave’s book ⁠An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music⁠ . This episode covers Francis James Chi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes back Ned Sublette to continue the discussion about his book “ ⁠Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.” ⁠ Ned and Nate discuss Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes back Dave Thompson to continue discussing Dave’s book ⁠An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music⁠ . This episode covers the very oldest e...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes Norman Lebrecht author of " ⁠Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon in One Hundred Pieces.⁠ " Nate asks Norman about Beethoven's innovative business practices, his conflicts wit...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode hosts Nate Wilcox and Garrett Cash dive into the roots of African-American spirituals and Gospel’s deep roots in African musical practice. The discussion is based on Robert Darden’s “ ⁠People G...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letitrollpodcast.substack.com We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes back Ted Gioia to continue their discussion of his book “ ⁠Music: A Subversive History⁠ .” Nate and Ted talk about the less than perfect realities of the lives of the...