656 episodes
Thomas A. Dorsey Went From 'It's Tight Like That' to 'Precious Lord': Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.11
2026-10-02 | 46 mins.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.
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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesRalph Peer Brought Blues, Jazz, Country, and Latin Music to Record: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.10
2026-09-30 | 41 mins.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!
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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Beginnings of Country Music According to Ken Burns: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.9
2026-09-28 | 50 mins.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
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Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices- 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
Follow us on Twitter.
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Carter Family popularized the Child Ballads and Burl Ives built a new tradition: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.7
2026-09-23 | 52 mins.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
Follow us on Twitter.
Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About 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.
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