Let It Roll

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 and Lucie E. Campbell. The book under discussion is “We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pi...

We're continuing our recast of all the Let It Roll episodes in chronological order by topic with Ted Gioia on “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 it started in...

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses minstrelsy and blackface and includes a recording of a 1902 ‘coon song,’ presented as historical evidence. Racial slurs occur in the song’s title and in the discussion around it. In this episode, author Peter Doggett and host Nate Wilcox discuss "Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music." This one is about the first people t...

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses minstrelsy and blackface and includes a recording of a 1902 ‘coon song,’ presented as historical evidence. Racial slurs occur in the song’s title and in the discussion around it. In this episode, author Peter Doggett and host Nate Wilcox discuss "Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music." Peter explains how he came to take o...

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 Handy, the man who "discovered" the blues and Louis Armstrong's signifying takes on old time songs...

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 compilation and the roots of country music in 19th-century American music. This episode original...

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 include ⁠Robert Darden's "People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music"⁠ and "⁠Tel...

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 author David Wondrich, to discuss his overlooked classic: “Stomp and Swerve: How American Music Got Hot 1843-1924.” In this episode, David takes Nate way way back into the history of American music, long before the invention of recording, to discuss how...

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 Dance in New York, 1840-1917". This episode originally dropped in 2022. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode 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 the 150 years of myth-making around Stephen Foster's song. This episode originally dropped in 2022. GO...

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 James Francis Child himself, how he came to collect British ballads and how they were published. We also discuss...

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, the most popular and important 19th Century American composer who connected New Orleans to Hava...

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 examples of The Child Ballads, with lyrical themes dating back to the ancient Egyptians and Gree...

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 with royalty, his opposition to the sexual mores of imperial Vienna and more. This episode original...

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. Based on Robert Darden's "People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music." Buy the book and support the show. This episode originally aire...

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 great composers. From the murderous makers of madrigals to the sometimes sordid antics of J.S....

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, Nate Wilcox and author Ned Sublette have the second of several conversations about Ned's book "⁠Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo⁠." This episode looks at the musical developments in the colonial Caribbean as the Spanish, French and English found their cultures in...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, Nate Wilcox and author Ned Sublette have the first of several conversations about Ned's book "⁠Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo⁠." This episode focuses on the cultural collisions and cross-pollination triggered when Europeans enslaved Africans and dragged them, a...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode,Nate Wilcox and author Dave Thompson discuss the first chapter of Dave's book An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music. This episode originally dropped in 2024. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes Ned Sublette, author of "The Cultural Blend That Made New Orleans Music Unique: Let It Roll From the Beginning...to the End 3." Sublette's book is "a tale of imperial war, religious conflict, the search for treasure, the spread of slavery, the Cuban connecti...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. Hosts Nate Wilcox and Yuri Campbell look back at Nate's discussion with Ted Gioia about his book "Music: A Subversive History" and what we learned about the uncontrollable, dangerous power of music, music as magic, and how authorities always try to tame musical revolutions and never quite succeed. Th...

We're relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter. This episode goes back to the beginnings of human culture and features Ted Gioia discussing his book ”Music: A Subversive History.” Ted and Nate discuss the tension between the social outsiders who’ve always been the source of musical innovation and the mainstream academicians who borrow their ideas....

Hosts Nate Wilcox and Justin Bankston take it back to Tejas for the final installment of the first series of "We Dig Rock Docs" with a discussion of Les Blanks' classic 1976 film Chula Fronteras. This episode originally dropped in 2022. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- The final 15 min...

Hosts Nate Wilcox and Justin Bankston discuss "Hype!" the masterful telling of what happened when Seattle's happy little underground scene became an international pop culture sensation, attracting thousands of wannabes and hundreds of reporters to the city. This episode originally dropped in 2022. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Just before the release of Nevermind and "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana toured Europe opening up for mentors Sonic Youth. Hosts Nate Wilcox and Justin Bankston look back on this iconic moment from their youth in their discussion of the documentary "1991 - The Year Punk Broke." This episode originally dropped in 2022. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...