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.
Episodes
December 26, 2025 • 43 mins
Ed Ward and Nate Wilcox continue their discussion of Ed's book "The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock" with a look at 1968: the year of riots and revolution, the year of newcomers like Led Zeppelin and Sly & the Family Stone and The Band who led a musical counter-revolution.
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December 24, 2025 • 60 mins
Ed Ward and Nate Wilcox continue their discussion of Ed's book "The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock" with a look at 1967, the year of Monterey Pop, when the Beatles lost Brian Epstein and gained the Maharishi, Brian Wilson blew it and Otis Redding died.
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December 22, 2025 • 46 mins
Ed Ward and Nate Wilcox continue their discussion of Ed's book "The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock" with a look at rock & roll's second miracle year when America responded to the Beatles by blending folk and blues with rock & roll. They discuss how Michael Bloomfield electrified Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys making Pet Sounds, Stax hitting its stride, James Brown getti...
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December 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Ed Ward and Nate Wilcox kick off their discussion of Ed's book "The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock" with a look at The Beatles' conquest of America, the other British bands that followed in their wake and the American response headed up by Motown and James Brown.
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December 17, 2025 • 36 mins
Ed Ward and host Nate Wilcox fill in a gap in our discussion of his epic History of Rock & Roll Part 1, 1920-1963, with a look at Bob Wills and Western Swing. We pick up the history of country music where we left off after the Carter Family & Jimmie Rodgers episode and carry on to the 1930s emergence of a distinctive genre in Texas: Western Swing and the man, Bob Wills, who led it to the top of the pop charts, packed dance halls, T...
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December 15, 2025 • 42 mins
Ed Ward and host Nate Wilcox fill in a gap in our discussion of his epic History of Rock & Roll Part 1, 1920-1963 with a look at how African-American pop music transformed itself thru the swing era, the rise & fall of the blues queens, the thin line between jazz and blues, the first guitar heroes and the greatest American musical superstar you’ve probably barely heard of, Louis Jordan.
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December 12, 2025 • 38 mins
Ed Ward and host Nate Wilcox fill in a gap in our discussion of his epic History of Rock & Roll Part 1, 1920-1963 by discussing the foundation of commercial country music and its first superstars, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.
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December 10, 2025 • 45 mins
This episode is a prequel to recent episodes that covers the period from 1920 to 1945. It’s a fun one as Ed Ward and Nate Wilcox talk rock and roll’s prehistory in the era of Victrolas, live radio, and swing bands. We talk about the first hit blues record, the first superstars of country music, and much more.
Buy the book and support the podcast.
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December 8, 2025 • 44 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward conclude their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with part two of 1963.
We'll hear about about the Lebanese Restaurant that birthed surf music and saved Fender guitars, how Murray Wilson’s failed musical career laid the groundwork for his sons’ amazing success, how Columbia buried Bob Dylan’s first attempt to go rock, and the split between kids singing “My Boyfriend’...
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December 5, 2025 • 32 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with the first of two shows discussing 1963. This week we’ll be talking about how Berry Gordy perfected his Motown assembly line, Phil Spector and the wrecking crew, Roy Orbison’s operatic dramas, Patsy Cline’s final year, and how James Brown finally seized control of his career and became the Godfather of Soul.
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December 3, 2025 • 54 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at 1961 and 1962, years that are often written off as “the dark ages” of the first rock and roll era. But, as Ed Ward points out, “any time you’re a teenager is the best time for rock and roll!”
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December 1, 2025 • 59 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at 1960, a year when the American corporate brass thought they had tamed the rock and roll rebels of the 1950s.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for pa...
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November 28, 2025 • 57 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at 1959, a year that started with tragedy for rock n’ roll and went on to see the first flowerings of soul music and the Brill Building pop that would dominate the early 60s.
It was also the year that the music business figured out how to package pretty faces with rocking beats and foisted Fabian and Frankie Avalon...
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November 26, 2025 • 50 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at 1958, the backlash year. This was the year that Elvis got drafted and Jerry Lee Lewis ruined his career with a bigamous marriage to his 13-year-old cousin.
It was also the year that the music business figured out how to package pretty faces with rocking beats and foisted Fabian and Frankie Avalon on the world. W...
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November 24, 2025 • 65 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at what Ed calls the “Miracle Year” of rock and roll. The year when Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and others were at the peak of their powers and dominated the charts.
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November 21, 2025 • 31 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's "History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 " with a look at rock and roll in 1956, focusing on the rocky yet productive relationships between African-American recording artists and the Jewish entrepreneurs who brought their work to market. We discuss the relationship between James Brown and Syd Nathan of King Records, the tragic relationship between the gifted 13-year-old Fran...
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November 19, 2025 • 47 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 with a look at 1955 and 1956.
These are the years when the “American Prometheus” brought forth Elvis Presley, when Chuck Berry culturally appropriated Western Swing for his first hit and Hollywood shocked the masses with the first rock and roll movies. As always we’ll touch on the non-musical factors that made all this possible -- chang...
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November 17, 2025 • 45 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 with a look at the period when Rock and Roll really got started.
We’ll hear about the woman who discovered Elvis Presley, a pair of Jewish music fans who become legit R&B legends, how a Turkish record mogul wrote Ray Charles’ first hit, when country music discovered cheating songs and a whole lot about dirty, dirty, naughty rhythm and blu...
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November 14, 2025 • 47 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward continue their discussion of Ed's History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 with a look at the legendary song “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and the two simultaneous hit versions that came out in 1949 plus the early work of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Ruth Brown, and the late, great Johnny Ace.
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November 12, 2025 • 46 mins
Nate Wilcox and Ed Ward kick off their discussion of Ed's History of Rock & Roll 1920-1963 with a look at some of the factors that made the first five years after World War II so critical to the evolution of Rock and Roll.
GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are...
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