Rock & Roll

All Let It Roll episodes relevant to the Rock & Roll genre.

Let It Roll Originals

• The 90s Austin underground scene that produced Spoon, The Cherubs and many more

• Lou Reed's Transformer came out in a big way

• Hipgnosis designed iconic album covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and many more

• David Bowie 75 years after his birth

• The Complicated Legacy of Chuck Berry, the Inventor of Rock

• The Beatles vs. James Bond: Two Very Different Versions of Britain

• Steppenwolf's John Kay Came to Hard Rock from the Toronto Folk Scene

• Sun Records Presided Over the Dawn of Rockabilly With Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis

• John Lennon's Political Activism Got Him Targeted By the U.S Government

• David Crosby, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman on Founding the Byrds

• Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys and Creating The California Myth

• Duran Duran Mastered MTV and Ruled In the 80s

• Paul Simon's Brill Building Years Laid the Ground for Folk-Rock Success

• Gene Clark's Songwriting Lifted the Byrds

• The Velvet Underground Brought the Avant-Garde to Rock and Presaged Punk

• The Band That Broke Czechoslovakian Communism: Plastic People of the Universe

• Arthur Lee and Love Ruled LA's Sunset Strip Between The Byrds and The Doors

• The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead and the Hell's Angels All Faced a Reckoning at Altamont

• Sly Stone Embodied the Optimism of Woodstock Nation Until He Didn’t

• Bad Brains' HR Created a New Template for Hard Rock Then Tore It All Down

• Yoko Ono Brought Classical and Avant-Garde Techniques to Rock

• John Entwistle's Bass Anchored The Who and His Rockstar Life Dragged Him Down

• From Jimi Hendrix to R.E.M., Warner Brothers Records Provided Artists a Rock Era Oasis

• The Secrets Behind Elvis Presley's Relationship with Col. Tom Parker

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

• Cream Combined Heavy Blues Rock With Jazz Improv and Psychedelic Pop

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

• Etta James Was a First Wave Rock N Roller and Later Led Chess Records’ Soul Music Charge

• Nicky Hopkins' Piano Graced Classic Rock by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, and Many More

• Aerosmith, KISS, Cheap Trick & Starz Carved Out a Space for Weird Rock in the 1970s

• How Jazz and Rock and Roll Came to Be Seen As Completely Separate Genres

• Rock's Back Pages Makes Historic Rock Writing Available

• The Kinks' Class-Consciousness Made Them Wary of the Promises of Swinging London

• Bert Berns' Songs Were Immortalized by The Beatles, The Isley Brothers, Janis Joplin, Van Morrison and More

• The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, Phil Spector, Nancy Sinatra and Kim Fowley Exploded out of Early ‘60s Hollywood

• Joan Jett's Years With the Runaways Laid the Groundwork for Solo Stardom

• Solving the Mysteries Behind Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel”

• The Kingsmen's 'Louie Louie' and The Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction’ were built on Cuban Mambo & Cha-cha-cha

• Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart & Ron Wood Nearly Perfected Hard Rock Before Led Zeppelin Even Formed

• Easy Listening Absorbed Psychedelia in the Late 1960's

• Introducing David Bowie to Stardust, Choosing Between Hendrix and The Who

• From Surf Rock to Folk Rock to Freak Out, the Studio Scene in 1960s Los Angeles Captured the Moment

• How The Memphis That Spawned Elvis & Stax Also Birthed The Box Tops & Big Star

• How Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin' Wolf, & Col. Tom Parker Helped Peter Guralnick Get Lost

• Freddie Mercury and Queen Earned Rock Immortality

• Jimmy Page Before Led Zeppelin: Session Man & Yardbird

• The Beatles' Story Changes With The Teller

• Elvis Presley: Decline And Fall

• London Nurtured Classic Rock, Prog Rock, Blues Rock And Folk

• AC/DC Perfected Hard Rock While Flirting With Punk

• The Beatles As The End Of Rock & Roll: What Have We Learned From Elijah Wald’s “Alternative History of American Popular Music?”

• How The Beatles Got Signed

• How Elvis Presley Rose To The Top

• The Jim Morrison Biography That Kicked Off The Doors Revival

• America Awaited the Beatles

• The Rise & Fall of Phil Spector

• Rod Stewart & the Faces: A Complicated Alliance

• The Rolling Stones Road to Altamont

• Robert Christgau on the Role of the Rock Critic

• House of the Rising Sun Before Bob Dylan And After The Animals

• Which One's Pink (Floyd)?

• John, Paul, George & Ringo Couldn't Escape The Beatles

• The Grateful Dead Builds Psychedelic America

• Dewey Phillips, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding and Memphis music

• CSNY Tried to Have It All

• Managing Led Zeppelin, the Biggest Band on Earth

• Jerry Lee Lewis Starts His Come Back at the Star Club

• How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll

• The Moby Grape Story Part 2

• The Moby Grape Story Part 1

• The Fall of Michael Bloomfield

• The Rise of Michael Bloomfield

• David Bowie: Starman

• Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed

• Brian Jones The Making of the Rolling Stones

Let It Roll Telepathy

• Mick Jagger on Brian Jones and forming the Rolling Stones

• In the end the Rolling Stones chewed up and and spat out Andrew Loog Oldham

• Andrew Loog Oldham broke The Rolling Stones in the USA

• Andrew Loog Oldham made The Rolling Stones the band Britain loved to hate

• Marianne Faithfull got too close to the fire with the Rolling Stones

• Marianne Faithfull abandoned her pop career to be Mick Jagger’s muse

• Living with the Rolling Stones in 1963

Let It Roll Nightmares

• The Grateful Dead were the pied pipers of psychedelics

• Phil Spector's rise and fall was a rock 'n' roll nightmare

• Why Altamont went so wrong for the Rolling Stones and everyone else

• The Rolling Stones’ journey to Altamont

• Brian Jones got everything he asked for when he formed the Rolling Stones

• Jerry Lee Lewis bounced back at the Star Club

Seance Roll

• Seance Roll 3: Questioning Ed Ward's History of Rock N Roll

• Seance Roll 1: The Beatles messed with listeners' heads and ultimately paid the price

‘80s Roll

• 80s Roll 19: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones led “We Are The World”

• 80s Roll 17: Classic Rockers Like Don Henley, Foreigner and Steve Perry Had a Big 1984 Too

• 80s Roll 16: Bruce Springsteen broke all the way through with Born in the USA

• 80s Roll 11: Prince's Purple Reign

• 80s Roll 6: Talking Heads' Movie Stop Making Sense Topped the Field of Rock n Roll Movies in 1984

• 80s Roll 3: Culture Club, The Eurythmics, The Human League, Duran Duran and The Police Led the 2nd British Invasion

3 Kings of American Pop

• The Unmaking of Elvis Presley

• The Making of Elvis Presley

We Dig VH1’s Metal Evolution

• Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple Were the Big Three of British Heavy Music

• Blue Cheer, Steppenwolf, the Stooges and MC5 Invent American Hard Rock

• Heavy Metal Emerged When Blues Rockers Added Elements of Classical Music and Opera

We Dig Rock Docs

• The New York Dolls' Punky Glam Was Too Much, Too Soon

• ZZ Top Took Marshall Amps and Remade Boogie-Blues as Heavy Rock

• The MC5's Combination of Hard Rock and Radical Politics Was Too Volatile to Last

• Leon Russell Spotlighted in Les Blank's "A Poem Is A Naked Person”

Ed Ward’s “History of Rock & Roll”

• What Have We Learned From Ed Ward's History of Rock and Roll [Volume 2]?

• The Pre-Punk Seventies

• Hard Rock Vs. Soft Rock, AM Vs. FM

• The Invention of 'The Sixties'

• 1968 Rock, Riot, Revolution

• Bob Dylan Rocks Folk

• The Beatles Invade And The Rolling Stones Follow

• What Have We Learned From Ed Ward's History of Rock and Roll [Volume 1]?

• 1963 The British Invasion is Coming!

• 1963 Brill Building pop is perfected

• 1961-1962 The Quiet Years

• 1960 The Fire of Rebellion Has Been Snuffed

• 1959 Death and Soul

• 1958 The Year the Music Didn't Quite Die

• 1957 The Miracle Year of Rock & Roll

• 1956 Rock & Roll in Full Flower

• 1955 Rock and Roll is Born....Maybe

• 1953-1954 Rock, Meet Roll

• The Early 1950s and Good Rockin Tonight

• 1945-1950 The Post-War Years