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History Listen: Rock By cover art

History Listen: Rock

By: Double Elvis Productions
Narrated by: St. Vincent
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Episodes
  • Trailer

    Trailer
    Jan 12 2023
    Rock and Roll is history. Join acclaimed singer and songwriter St. Vincent as she examines the evolution of rock from the earliest R&B through the end of the 20th century, telling the stories of particular artists to illustrate how various subgenres reached into the past to push the music forward. Hear how the music sits in the context of world history, helping to shape the culture, while also being shaped by it. History Listen offers something for casual fans and die-hards alike, skipping the worn out narratives in favor of new perspectives, wild characters, overlooked songs, and the many connections that span the decades. Hit the back button. Press play.
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    1 min
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  • EPISODE 101: R&B: Making A Hit With “Big Mama” Thornton & Johnny Otis

    EPISODE 101: R&B: Making A Hit With “Big Mama” Thornton & Johnny Otis
    Jan 12 2023
    The groundwork for rock and roll is laid in post-WW2 America, as big band jazz converges with blues, strips down the instrumentation, and adds attitude. Empresario Johnny Otis helps a wild singer named “Big Mama” Thornton capture lightning on tape with the R&B hit “Hound Dog”, before it becomes a rock and roll smash for Elvis Presley. Thornton later connects with Muddy Waters, whose own electric moment in Chicago helped the formation of R&B.
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    36 mins
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  • EPISODE 102: Rockabilly: Blurring The Lines With Elvis & Chuck Berry

    EPISODE 102: Rockabilly: Blurring The Lines With Elvis & Chuck Berry
    Jan 12 2023
    Young Elvis Presley finds his passion in the country, R&B, and gospel music of rural Tennessee, and doesn’t think twice about making it his own. Chuck Berry takes R&B and puts the guitar front and center, writing songs with blues licks and great, almost poetic American stories. Country meets blues as each man tries to cross the color divide. The concept of appropriation becomes convoluted as the template for rock and roll is set and the color lines are blurred.
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    35 mins
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About the Host - Annie Clark aka St. Vincent

About the Host

Annie Clark made her recorded debut as St. Vincent in 2007 with Marry Me, quickly becoming regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating presences in modern music. Her subsequent albums would include Actor (2009), Strange Mercy (2011), and her self-titled fourth album and winner of the 2014 GRAMMY for Best Alternative Album, making her the second female artist ever to win in that category. In addition to these solo works, St. Vincent joined with David Byrne to record and release the collaborative album Love This Giant in 2012, and performed with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear of Nirvana at the band’s 2014 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2017, working with co-producer Jack Antonoff, St. Vincent created a defining statement with MASSEDUCTION. The album broke St. Vincent into the U.S. and UK top 10s while landing atop Best of 2017 lists of The New York Times, The Guardian, AV Club, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, NME, USA Today, and more—not to mention winning two GRAMMYs (Best Rock Song for its title track, and Best Recording Package).
2021’s Daddy’s Home found St. Vincent channeling the hungover glamor and gritty sepia-toned soundtrack of 1970s downtown NYC to an ecstatic reception, ultimately winning her a second Best Alternative Album GRAMMY. In a glowing five-star review of the album, MOJO said "It's masterful stuff: a full conceptual realization, filled with great melodies, deep grooves, colourful characterisations, and some sonic detail that reveals itself over repeated plays" — with near unanimous accolades including a 4-star Rolling Stone review hailing the album as "a mutant strain of retro pop steeped in New York lore", "In an industry crowded with artists who claim singularity, there is perhaps no musician more deserving of the label than St. Vincent" (INTERVIEW), " St. Vincent has gotten to the point where we can’t look away, because there’s just nobody in indie pop quite like Annie Clark" (PASTE) and so many more.
In addition to dazzling audiences with her Down and Out Downtown Band on her 2021-2022 tour—featuring debut headline appearances at venues including the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall, as well as a run as special guest on the North American leg of Roxy Music’s 50th anniversary tour—St. Vincent recently unveiled the newest model of her Ernie Ball signature guitar, and co-wrote and starred in the IFC feature film The Nowhere Inn.

Entertainment & Performing Arts
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What listeners say about History Listen: Rock

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Profile Image for Anonymous User

Grear first episode!

I will surely listen to the other episodes and am looking forward to a second season.

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  • Overall
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Profile Image for Chad R. Kimrey

The real School of Rock

I knew it would be good, but it's even better than I expected. Got me listening to some great artists & music I never knew about.

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Profile Image for Alex Kildall

Great Storytelling

Annie fit the tone of each story so well and made each moment engaging like pages you can't stop turning. Soundmixing was so creative, I especially liked the London Factory music with the pounding hammers. I felt transported to that time and place, it really stuck with me. I loved the personal stories thrown in to humanize the bands I love before my time. Thank you for putting this in the world 🤍

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  • Overall
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Profile Image for mike

Snapshot Perfection

Incredibly well done, although if you knew nothing about rock-n-roll prior to listening you would walk away with a sparse, pseudo-chronological patchwork vision of the historical progression. If you dropped The History of the English Speaking Peoples a dozen times and read the odd numbered pages you would achieve a similar effect. Oddly though, this isn't really a complaint, just an observation. The writing by the Double Elvis crew and the performance of St. Vincent, who is a natural storyteller, is sublime. Some of the wordplay made me laugh with joy. I could have done with less Marc Bolan and David Bowie (who got more time than the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin and Floyd combined) and I don't take punk rock seriously enough to appreciate a dedicated episode. That being said, if they do another 100 episodes of this series I will listen to all of them.

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Profile Image for Amazon Customer

Amazing history of rock

Amazing and dramatic overview of the history of rock, such great little tidbits. Amazing writing and I could listen to St Vincent read the phone book and enjoy it.

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Loved this so much

Wish there was more of these. Annie killed it. One of my favorite music documentary

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Profile Image for A Jacin

Love it!!

I really enjoyed this podcast. I love rock music and fantastic hear the history from Lead Belly to today

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Profile Image for DLF

An interesting story, well told by St. Vincent

Apparently, it was too expensive a hassle to gain clearance for the iconic songs, or at least snippets of them, so I had to dock the overall rating a star for that omission. But in addition to educating oneself on the Blues, Country, Folk, Gospel, Jazz and R&B roots of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the other good reason to listen to this is the mellifluous tone of St. Vincent’s narration (like Melanie Griffith with a musicology Ph.d!), so her Performance rates a perfect 5/5 stars.

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Profile Image for larry bobbitt

A really nice listen

Very informative and her narration is pleasing to the ear. I hope they continue this series.

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Profile Image for staples

Filled w interesting details

…But it would be even better if more if the discussed music was included.
Well-written

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1 person found this helpful