PODCAST · music
Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music
by Thomas Stubbs
In 1927, the record industry split American music in two and sold it to separate audiences. We've believed the split ever since.Groundwater is a music history podcast that follows the current underneath — the blues, running from Congo Square to the South Bronx, from Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin to hip-hop.Each episode traces a moment the industry tried to keep apart: the soul sessions at Stax and Muscle Shoals that crossed every line; Louis Armstrong working race and commerce from New Orleans to Chicago; the Great Migration carrying Muddy Waters and the Delta sound up the Illinois Central to Memphis, Chicago, and Detroit; and the state's long campaign against the singers who got political, from Billie Holiday to the Dixie Chicks.If you want to understand why American music sounds the way it does, start here and follow the water.
Episodes
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Rooms Where the Walls Came Down, Part 2: Stax, Muscle Shoals, and Minton's Playhouse
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, January 1967. Jerry Wexler brings Aretha Franklin, the daughter of the most famous Black preacher in America, to FAME Studios to record with four white session men she has never met, in a region where the Klan is a functioning organization. She walks in skeptical. The...
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Rooms Where the Walls Came Down Part 1: Sun Studio and Chess Records
July 5, 1954. A storefront studio on Union Avenue in Memphis, a nineteen-year-old Elvis failing for hours — until he started fooling with a blues during a break and the man behind the glass stuck his head out. This episode is about that room, and the one on the South Side of Chicago where two...
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The Moondog: Alan Freed, the Payola Scandal, and the First Rock and Roll Riot
On a Friday night in Cleveland in March 1952, a crowd twice the size of the building broke down the doors of the Cleveland Arena to hear Black rhythm-and-blues bands play. The Moondog Coronation Ball — often called the first rock and roll concert — was ended by the fire department before a single...
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The Same Music: The Bristol Sessions, Hank Williams, and the Lie That Split Blues from Country
In the summer of 1927, a talent scout named Ralph Peer set up a temporary recording studio on the third floor of a hat company in Bristol, Tennessee, and built the two shelves — race records and hillbilly — that still separate blues from country a century later. The split had nothing to do with…
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We Both Speak African: Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and How Jazz Crossed the Atlantic
Dizzy Gillespie meets Chano Pozo, Django Reinhardt hears Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis records Sketches of Spain. How jazz crossed the Atlantic and came back changed. When Jelly Roll Morton talked about the "Spanish tinge" in jazz, he wasn't talking about Spain. He was talking about Cuba, and...
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The Country's Memory: Jimi Hendrix, Strange Fruit, and American Music at 250
Jimi Hendrix played "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969 and let the war in around the melody. This year the United States turns 250. This Groundwater special steps back from the map to ask what twentieth-century American music has been for: the country's memory, the part of the record...
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The Blues Professor, Part 2: Muddy Waters, the Mardi Gras Indians, and Where to Start with the Blues
Muddy Waters, the Mardi Gras Indians, Blind Willie McTell, and the one record to start with: the second half of Thomas Stubbs's conversation with Rich Pettit, the man Atlanta knows as the Blues Professor. In Part 1 we traced the blues out of West Africa and up the East Coast. This half starts…
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The Blues Professor, Part 1: Piedmont Blues, the Allman Brothers, and Atlanta's Living Scene
Piedmont blues, the Allman Brothers, Lonnie Holley, and the long road the blues took out of West Africa: Thomas Stubbs sits down with Rich Pettit, the man Atlanta knows as the Blues Professor — part one of two. For forty years, Rich has hosted Good Morning Blues on WRFG 89.3, Atlanta's community...
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Groundwater Trailer: Why American Music's Genre Labels Are a Lie - A Music History Podcast
A two-minute introduction to Groundwater — what the show is, why American music's genre labels are a lie, and where we're going. Start here, then follow the water.
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Twelfth Street Station: The Great Migration and How New Orleans Music Reached Chicago
The music didn’t ride north on riverboats. It rode the Illinois Central Railroad — out of New Orleans, up through Memphis and the Mississippi Delta into Chicago — in the luggage cars and Jim Crow coaches of the Great Migration. Episode 4 of Groundwater traces what the music became when it left…
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The Drain: New Orleans Music From Professor Longhair to Katrina
Professor Longhair kicked the bass of his piano to keep time. The Meters stripped the second line down to funk. Then the levees broke. New Orleans music from Longhair to Katrina Armstrong left. Bechet left. Oliver left. Morton left. For thirty years, the romantic version of the story held that…
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Little Louis: Louis Armstrong and the Birth of Jazz
The first jazz musician is a ghost — no recording of Buddy Bolden survives. This is the story of the music from Bolden through Storyville to the kid who became Louis Armstrong. What we know about him comes from the testimony of people who heard him play, filtered through decades of memory and…
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Below Sea Level: How New Orleans Built American Music
New Orleans should not exist — a city in a swamp, below sea level, at the mouth of a continent. It became the place that built American music: jazz, blues, R&B, funk, rock and roll. New Orleans was founded in 1718 in a swamp, below sea level, by people who needed someone standing at the mouth of...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In 1927, the record industry split American music in two and sold it to separate audiences. We've believed the split ever since.Groundwater is a music history podcast that follows the current underneath — the blues, running from Congo Square to the South Bronx, from Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin to hip-hop.Each episode traces a moment the industry tried to keep apart: the soul sessions at Stax and Muscle Shoals that crossed every line; Louis Armstrong working race and commerce from New Orleans to Chicago; the Great Migration carrying Muddy Waters and the Delta sound up the Illinois Central to Memphis, Chicago, and Detroit; and the state's long campaign against the singers who got political, from Billie Holiday to the Dixie Chicks.If you want to understand why American music sounds the way it does, start here and follow the water.
HOSTED BY
Thomas Stubbs
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music have?
Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music currently has 13 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music about?
In 1927, the record industry split American music in two and sold it to separate audiences. We've believed the split ever since.Groundwater is a music history podcast that follows the current underneath — the blues, running from Congo Square to the South Bronx, from Robert Johnson to Aretha...
How often does Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music release new episodes?
Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music has 13 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music?
You can listen to Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music?
Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music is created and hosted by Thomas Stubbs.
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