Podcast
Let It Roll
"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.
- Music History chart
- #101
- Episodes
- 670
- Releases
- Twice a week
- Typical length
- 43 min
- On air since
- 2017
- Latest episode
- 1 day ago
Episodes
670 episodes, newest first
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27 min
Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and the Swing Era Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox welcomes back Peter Doggett, author of “Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of Pop Music,” in a conversation first released in 2019 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic. It picks up where Peter’s Bing Crosby episode left off, moving from the radio era of the 1920s into the 1930s.
CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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42 min
Robert Johnson Revised Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox brings back Dr. Yuri Campbell, scholar and musician, to weigh what the previous episode’s conversation with Elijah Wald about “Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues” actually taught us.
CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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41 min
Robert Johnson: Escaping the Delta Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Elijah Wald, author of “Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues,” in a conversation first released in 2018 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning.
Elijah explains why Johnson was a minor figure in his own day: the stars in his world were Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr and Peetie Wheatstraw, and what was exotic about Johnson to his neighbors was that he had traveled and sounded like the people on the records.
CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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51 min
Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues of St. Louis Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Kevin Belford, artist, illustrator and author of “Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri,” in a brand-new conversation recorded in October 2026. 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.
CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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44 min
Chick Webb's Big Beat Style of Swing Led Directly to Rock 'n' Roll Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Stephanie Stein Crease, author of “Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat That Changed America,” in a conversation first released in 2023 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic. It follows straight on from Jeff Kaufman’s Savoy King episode, going deeper into Baltimore, the Harlem years and the band Chick built.
CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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2 min
Introducing Before The Moment with Nile Rodgers
Show notes
Pantheon Media CEO Christian Swain invites you to check out the Before The Moment podcast. Legendary Producer Nile Rodgers sits down with artists to explore the decisions, setbacks, and unexpected encounters that came before the breakthrough. Follow the show, you will love it!
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51 min
Swing King Chick Webb Brought Ella Fitzgerald to the World Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Jeff Kaufman, director, writer and producer of the documentary film “The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America,” in a conversation first released in 2022 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic. This is Harlem’s swing era at its peak, and the bandleader at its center who is now nearly forgotten.
For more information about THE SAVOY KING, including DVDs with a free eBook.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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47 min
Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Big Joe Turner: How Kansas City Vice Birthed Kansas City Jazz Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Chuck Haddix, co-author with Frank Driggs of “Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop - A History,” in a conversation first released in 2020 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic. This is the story of how one wide-open Midwestern town got from ragtime to bebop in twenty years, and set up swing, jump blues and rock and roll on the way.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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51 min
Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, Josh White & Jean Ritchie and the first Folk Revival Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox talks with Dave Thompson, author of “An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music,” in a conversation first released in 2025 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by subject matter. This is the moment the old ballads stopped passing from grandparent to grandchild and started arriving by record, radio and movie soundtrack - the run-up to the first folk revival.
This episode originally dropped in 2025.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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56 min
Rhythm & Blues from Bessie Smith to Louis Jordan Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox and the late Ed Ward, author of “The History of Rock & Roll, Volume One: 1920-1963,” close Season 3 of Let It Roll From the Beginning... with a conversation first recorded in 2018. This is the gap between the 1920s and the birth of rock and roll: how African American pop music went from the blues queens through the swing era to rhythm and blues.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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40 min
The Songs Jazz is Built On Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox is joined again by Ted Gioia, author of “The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire,” in a conversation first recorded in 2019 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic - the story of the music told forward, in the order it actually happened.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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51 min
Record Men From Thomas Edison to John Hammond & Chris Blackwell Trailer
Show notes
Gareth Murphy set out to write an obituary for the record man. A French label boss had told him over lunch that the record producer was a dying breed, and in the 2010s, with the industry shrinking every year since 1999, it looked like he was right. Then Murphy went back to the beginning, found the same collapse in the 1920s and again in the Depression, and came out the other side with the opposite conclusion: the record business is cyclical, it has to go extinct now and then, and it always comes back. Host Nate Wilcox welcomes Gareth Murphy, author of “Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry,” in a conversation first recorded in 2022 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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45 min
Bing Crosby's Swing Brought Him Superstardom
Show notes
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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39 min
Bing Crosby and the Age of the Crooner Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox is joined again by Peter Doggett, author of “Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of Pop Music,” in a conversation first recorded in 2019 and returning now to conclude season 3 of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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47 min
Thomas A. Dorsey Went From 'It's Tight Like That' to 'Precious Lord' Trailer
Show notes
The same man wrote “It’s Tight Like That” and “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” As Georgia Tom, Thomas A. Dorsey cut it with Tampa Red in 1928 - one of the dirtiest hits of the decade, and the record that set off the hokum craze. As Thomas A. Dorsey, he wrote the song Mahalia Jackson sang at Martin Luther King’s funeral. And the order is not the one you would guess: “It’s Tight Like That” came after his religious conversion, not before it, because the church songs were not paying and he had a wife to feed.
Host Nate Wilcox is joined again by Garrett Cash for the fourth installment of HolyRoll, their history of gospel music, in a conversation first recorded in 2022 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic - the story of the music told forward, in the order it actually happened.
The book under discussion is Michael W. Harris’s “The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church,” with Anthony Heilbut’s “The Gospel Sound” and Robert Darden’s “People Get Ready!” alongside it.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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42 min
Ralph Peer Brought Blues, Jazz, Country, and Latin Music to Record Trailer
Show notes
Before OKeh would bet on records made by Black artists for Black buyers, somebody had to go and find out whether that market existed. The company sent Ralph Peer. He went into barbershops and pool halls and asked people whether they would buy records made by their own artists, and came back with the answer: yes, they will. That is Barry Mazor’s account of how Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” got made in 1920 - not the story Perry Bradford told for the rest of his life, and Barry has a line for that: the least-heard sentence in the history of music is “I don’t deserve that much credit for this.”
Host Nate Wilcox is joined by Barry Mazor, author of “Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music,” in a conversation first recorded in 2022 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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50 min
The Beginnings of Country Music According to Ken Burns Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox is joined by James Porter - Chicago writer, DJ and musician - to open CountryRoll, their run through Ken Burns’s “Country Music” series, in a conversation first recorded in 2021 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic - the story of the music told forward, in the order it actually happened.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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36 min
Ed Ward on The Bristol Explosion Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox is joined by Ed Ward, his original co-host and the author of “The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963,” for a conversation first recorded in 2018 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being re-cast in chronological order by topic.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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53 min
The Carter Family popularized the Child Ballads and Burl Ives built a new tradition Trailer
Show notes
Host Nate Wilcox is joined again by Dave Thompson, author of “An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock,” for the next installment of Let It Roll From the Beginning..., in which the whole Let It Roll archive is being recast in chronological order by topic.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1 hr 1 min
Paul Whiteman Was the King of Jazz in 1925, to Music Critics
Show notes
In this episode, host Nate Wilcox welcomes Elijah Wald to discuss his controversial but informative book "How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll" which actually has a lot more to say about Paul Whiteman and why white America considered him the King of Jazz in the 1920s.
This episode originally dropped in 2018.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks!
Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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