1920-1939

All Let It Roll episodes covering American music and artists from the 1920s and 1930s.

Let It Roll Originals

• Genre, instruments, the meta-history of 20th-century music: Readers’ Mailbag

• Mambo hit New York hard in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s

• Chick Webb’s Big Beat Style of Swing Led Directly to Rock ‘n’ Roll

• Swing King Chick Webb Brought Ella Fitzgerald to the World

• Ralph Peer Brought Blues, Jazz, Country, and Latin Music to Record

• From Louis Armstrong to the White Stripes, 'St James Infirmary’ Connects Folk Traditions to Jazz and Rock

• Why Does Some Old Music Still Sound Contemporary and Some Sounds Very Dated?

• Milton Brown Mentored Bob Wills and Invented Western Swing

• Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Big Joe Turner: How Kansas City Vice Birthed Kansas City Jazz

• Robert Johnson Revised: What Have We Learned From Elijah Wald’s “Escaping the Delta?”

• The Songs Jazz is Built On

• The Cool: A 20th Century Phenomenon

• Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and the Swing Era

• Bing Crosby and the Age of the Crooner

• Robert Johnson: Escaping the Delta

Seance Roll

• Vernon Dalhart: The forgotten first superstar of country music

HolyRoll

• Holy Roll 6: Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field

• HolyRoll 5: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel and Mainstream American Star

• HolyRoll 4: Thomas A. Dorsey Went From 'It's Tight Like That’ to ‘Precious Lord’

• HolyRoll 3: Charles Tindley & Lucie Campbell Pioneered Gospel Composition

CountryRoll

• Countryroll 2: Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Gene Autry & Woody Guthrie Lead Country Music Through Hard Times According to Ken Burns

• Countryroll 1: The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers & the Beginnings of Country Music According to Ken Burns

Ed Ward’s “History of Rock and Roll”

• Bob Wills & Western Swing

• Rhythm & Blues from Bessie Smith to Louis Jordan

• Jimmie Rodgers & The Carter Family

• Rock Pre-History The 1920s & 30s