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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  • EPISODE 103: Folk: “In The Pines” With Lead Belly, Dylan, & Nirvana

    EPISODE 103: Folk: “In The Pines” With Lead Belly, Dylan, & Nirvana
    Jan 12 2023
    The mythology of Lead Belly is formed early, thanks to his murky life history, some of which was spent in prison, where he was first recognized as an artist and recorded by Alan and John Lomax for the Library of Congress. “In The Pines”, an almost gothic folk song of unknown origin, becomes a signature song for him. Bob Dylan discovers it on an acetate at Alan Lomax’s home, and uses the song to embrace traditional folk only so that he can throw it away, putting him on a path to going electric, much as Muddy Waters had done years before in Chicago. Years later, Kurt Cobain reclaims the song, seen from his vantage as a moment of musical purity.
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    39 mins
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  • EPISODE 104:British Invasion: Into America With The Kinks & The Beatles

    EPISODE 104:British Invasion: Into America With The Kinks & The Beatles
    Jan 12 2023
    Before Dylan plugs in at Newport Folk, the blues and R&B movements, largely neglected in America, finds a generation of dedicated fans in Europe. A wave of bands is formed out of the wreckage of World War II England, and they bring this art form, amped up by the further influence of Motown, Stax, and Sun Records, and repackaged with white faces, back to its country of origin, where it becomes a culture-shifting sensation. A country in mourning takes the opportunity to cut loose.
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    36 mins
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  • EPISODE 105: Psychedelic Rock: Into Darkness With Love & Hendrix

    EPISODE 105: Psychedelic Rock: Into Darkness With Love & Hendrix
    Jan 12 2023
    American acts, spurred by the British Invasion, respond with their own evolution on the form, a DIY sound born in garages and nourished by pot, acid, and cultural upheaval. Arthur Lee, an African American from the South, grows up loving blues and folk, and moves to California where he connects with the folk-rock scene advanced by The Byrds. Lee forms Love, which displays sprawling influences, and their history spans the California scene from folk to garage to psychedelic and blues rock.
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    39 mins
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  • EPISODE 106: Southern Rock: Back To The Cradle With The Allman Brothers & The Rolling Stones

    EPISODE 106: Southern Rock: Back To The Cradle With The Allman Brothers & The Rolling Stones
    Jan 12 2023
    As the psychedelic peace and love dream of the 1960s burns out in a blaze of protests, riots, murders, and assassinations, young American musicians turn back to their roots in the South. Country and blues music is filtered through ‘60s rock and soul (and psychedelic drugs) to become Southern rock, and The Allman Brothers its leading light. Guitarist Duane Allman records with Wilson Picket and connects with ‘60s icon Eric Clapton for Derek and the Dominoes, helping to tie Southern rock to the English blues and American soul traditions.
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    37 mins
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  • EPISODE 107: Glam: “Re-make / Re-model” With Roxy Music, David Bowie, & T-Rex

    EPISODE 107: Glam: “Re-make / Re-model” With Roxy Music, David Bowie, & T-Rex
    Jan 12 2023
    Back in the UK, rockers are going in a different direction. While the giants of the ‘60s begin to morph into “classic rock”, a younger set, raised on the British Invasion acts, take the creative depth of the concept album craze and present it with a disaffected and sexually fluid flash. It’s the antithesis of punk, yet had more substance than the rote arena rock that was beginning to dominate radio. Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music straddles glam, punk, and the emerging new wave, and adds an experimental edge with sonic adventurer Brian Eno. Glam eventually recedes, as its leading voice, David Bowie, evolves out of it (with the help of Roxy’s Brian Eno), but its retro-progessive influence only grows.
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    38 mins
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