Andrew Hickey’s History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast (& books) — discuss!

Is Astral Weeks or Gris Gris going to get a showing? Pentangle before Basket of light?

One of the Patreon episodes is on “I Walk On Guilded Splinters.” I assume Astral Weeks will be covered — he already did a Them episode — but I don’t know if a song from it will get its own episode or if it’ll be covered in an episode about a later Van song. He didn’t do a Velvets episode until “White Light/White Heat” (which caused a bit of consternation among some of his fans; “IT’S 1967! WHERE’S THE VELVETS?!”) but it covered their entire career.

And the song is often a device for telling the larger story. The one on “San Francisco” isn’t two solid hours on Scott MacKenzie, but a way to tell the story of the focal point of the California scene shifting from LA to the Bay Area.

damn, i know what i'm doing next week. i still haven't gotten around to those oral history podcasts... i have "the making of vs", "the making of song cycle", and "the making of neu!" in my backlog. such a backlog.

The Dark Star episode was fascinating. Some wild stuff near the end about the Dead being pioneers of marketing to obsessive fans and the crossover to internet culture. Love me some Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty but that’s all I need. That wasn’t a problem listening to the episode since so many interesting sidetracks to the story.

The stuff about the impact of the Dead on internet culture is a good starting point for a totally different podcast.

Has Jesse Jarnow covered it elsewhere. I Think he talks about it in Heads and I know he does a regular Grateful Dead podcast which is probably archived in a few places. So may be worth looking around to see if there is anything up online by him since I think he was one of the sources for Hickey.

Yes there’s an episode of the Good Old Grateful Deadcast that’s all about the rise of the band wrt Silicon Valley stuff. It doesn’t get anywhere near Barlow and his weird internet politics tho.

ty both ...i should have guessed this topic has already been explored

new episode dropped.
Down to 3 hours, I mean what is happening pull the finger out.
Crossroads by Cream which seems odd chronology but I am blanking on how the last episode fell to be where it stood chronologically. I thought the first appearance of the song was on the first lp but may be confusing it with Spoonful.
I assume this is going to be another case of a song where he can look at improvisation but also the blues revival.
& what an ass Clapton would go on to be of course.

I can only repeat myself when talking about this podcast, because each episode warrants it: this is absolutely stunning.

He’s in 1968 now, and he tends to choose songs that were released as singles, as the live “Crossroads” was. So, chronologically, it makes sense. He doesn’t always introduce an artist with their first record (which is why Velvets fans were losing their shit when 1967 came and went without mention of them), but always covers everything that led up to the song (and most everything that happened after).

And as with many other episodes in this series, the song in question is primarily a jumping-off point to tell a much larger story: the final 40 minutes are about Robert Johnson, and how white historians (Mack McCormick chief among them) fought over his legacy, exploited and stole from his surviving relatives, and simply made up shit about Johnson in order to reinforce their ideas of what “the blues” “should” be.

got there before me, I will just add that the episode finishes in 1969, so Clapton's 1970s fuckery is saved for a later episode.

Also the first part is a very decent history of the first couple of decades of blues music, I agreed with 95% of it, which is an extremely high percentage compared to most of the music histories I read.

I thought the first appearance of the song was on the first lp but may be confusing it with Spoonful.

Clapton first recorded in early '66 as part of a one-off studio supergroup called the Powerhouse for What's Shakin', an Elektra records comp. The arrangement is pretty close to the one Cream later used. Steve Winwood sings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUSah2Egid8

'recorded it'

This was … great. I don’t want to criticize his process because the results are worth the wait, but as soon as I’m finished each new episode I go into a sort of withdrawal and want MOAR CONTENT.

If you like the podcast and don’t support the dude on Patreon, I wholeheartedly encourage it. This is What He Does For A Living and I want — nay, need! — him to continue to do it.

Yeah, I had to artificially slow down my consumption so I didn't fully exhaust the backlog of episodes.
He's been averaging one episode a month in 2023, so with 334 episodes left, this series should be done in... May of 2051.
(I'm also not holding my breath that we're ever getting back to 30 minute episodes... the Patreon bonus episodes are longer than that these days)

I thought the one thing missing from the Cream episode was a clear sense of what makes Cream important enough to warrant this career-spanning examination. They provided a good excuse for digressions about the development of the blues genre and the life of Robert Johnson, which were great. And I enjoyed the stories about Ginger Baker being bellicose and Clapton being pretentious and insecure. But I came away unsure of why Hickey actually thinks Cream are all that significant to the development of rock, musically or culturally.

The '60s British blues scene does strike me as important, but mainly because it birthed the Rolling Stones. And the Stones covered Robert Johnson too, on Let it Bleed in 1969. I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a late '60s Stones episode coming up anyway. So why bother with Cream? I'm sure there's a good answer, but I don't think it was there in the episode.

Cream is a big benchmark in terms of rock instrumentalists being seen as stars largely on the basis of their playing ability. Clapton (and then Beck) with the Yardbirds was an early indicator of this evolution, but with Cream (and soon Hendrix) it really became a major trend - basically, the start of "rockism".

Halfway otm. I thought Hickey perfectly illustrated how the emergence of Cream was a kind of line of demarcation: the end of the multi-artist package shows where everyone plays four songs, and the beginning of headlining shows where one band plays for 90 minutes, necessitating a kind of “stretching out” that hadn’t really happened in that way before, and certainly not from a band with top 10 hits.

In his book, Nick Mason talks about seeing Cream live in 1966 and, noticing the drum kit was as much of an centre-stage attraction as the other members, decided that Pink Floyd's performances could be as striking as theirs was.

I thought Hickey perfectly illustrated how the emergence of Cream was a kind of line of demarcation: the end of the multi-artist package shows where everyone plays four songs, and the beginning of headlining shows where one band plays for 90 minutes

I don't think he illustrates this at all. If you're already aware that package shows fell out of favor, and long jams became a more prominent feature of rock shows, then sure, he gives Cream as a good example of a band whose career straddled that line. But the episode itself only hints that this was a consequential shift for the genre, rather than just a funny thing that happened to Cream.

(Also, one thing the episode DOES make clear is that Cream were accustomed to "stretching out" from their club days (albeit for the length of a standard club set rather than 90+ minutes), and that becoming a band with successful pop singles that coupld play a few numbers on package tour was the more awkward transition.)

Altho come on 45 minutes on Tiny Tim, significantly longer than the first 100 or so _main_ episodes?

That Tiny Tim episode was crazy! I had no idea that he moved in such interesting circles.

I am not a big fan of Cream but it seems pretty hard to avoid that Cream + Hendrix was basically the first step to heavy rock/metal

I'd be interested to know if Cream were an acknowledged influence on the early Black Sabbath. Seems plausible, and their careers did overlap. That's the kind of thing I'd like to have been discussed in the episode.

Sabbath were big Cream fans, Geezer and Bill Ward especially

I thought Cream band the Yardbirds had been significant in popularizing improvisation with major impact on the San Francisco ballroom scene and elsewhere. Or at least translating something that had been happening in a jazz setting into an electric rock one.
I have heard that the very early Who and possibly their earlier incarnation under a different name had done jams on r'n'b/blues stuff so some other bands were probably doing similar but it becoming a direction taken more consciously in the wake of those bands touring.

Also that in a Chinese whispers type take on Cream's intentions of keeping something vibrant but getting stuck in noisy distortion placeholders become widely dispersed method. Repetitive riffs played to at least have a part being played become the focus of those inspired by what the original player thought of as a lack of inspiration etc.& you get the more stoner end of hard rock.

Cream's intentions being more of a nuanced interplay. But amplification and having to play when not feeling fully inspired adding to something not being fully to their liking but something that does lay a usable template for others to explore.

Trying to fit the chronology together in my head but have heard that after first touring the UK/Europe as a raucous electric band in 1958, Muddy Waters was later marketed as an acoustic player to suit the 60s blues revival, Which would be anotherf case of white people rewriting the history of the blues and one I didn't hear Andrew Hickey referring to. BUt I may have missed some of it.

It was really sad to hear how badly the white blues researchers had messed up what information could be verified about Robert Johnson so I think I do need to read his sister's book.

Also interesting coming across the idea that at one point blues was a very current music form, probably more so with the delta style which I think I was coming across being referred to in terms of its archaicism and primality and lovely non valorised things like that. The Delta blues cropped up as an influence on a number of bands in teh mid 80s who were popular enough to have UK music scribes writing about them and trying to evoke the spirit of the blues from a much later prism so adding to the refraction. I'm not sure what people were playing the music that the blues grew out of prior to the popularisation of teh guitar partially through the Sears Roebuck catalogue. & the acoustic guitar being a very portable instrument was very handy for itinerant musicians. (I read something recently about the acoustic guitar only becoming something in Irish trad music in teh 60s which had me thinking about J0hnny Moynihan introducing teh bouzouki which is only a few years later and also down to its being very portable.May have been in Martin Hayes' memoir)

But the episode itself only hints that this was a consequential shift for the genre, rather than just a funny thing that happened to Cream.

One of the things I love about this podcast is how a consequential shift is sometimes presented as a funny thing — we know that future episodes will bear out said consequentiality.

(Also, one thing the episode DOES make clear is that Cream were accustomed to "stretching out" from their club days (albeit for the length of a standard club set rather than 90+ minutes), and that becoming a band with successful pop singles that coupld play a few numbers on package tour was the more awkward transition.)

In the UK they’d been used to playing relatively short club sets, and their only US appearances previously had had them playing only one song a show. But at the Fillmore they were expected to play for hours, and so they had to stretch out. As Bruce said “When we hit the Fillmore, we started to play those long improvisations . . . because we didn’t know hardly any songs! It was partly a repertoire, and partly a product of the times, because all the audiences were stoned out of their collective bonces.”

New Yorker article on the project by Bill McKibben(!)

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/podcast-dept/a-music-podcast-unlike-any-other

I've been hounding friends to listen to this. The initial reaction is usually, "oh, huh, another music podcast. Yeah, I might check it out someday."

Weeks later, said friend will collar me and say, "THAT PODCAST HAS ENRICHED MY LIFE!"

It's sure enriching mine. Just caught wind of it here earlier this summer and I am super obsessed (though still catching up). As someone said above, some of my fave episodes are about acts I am not as passionate about, like the Dark Star/Dead episode, which knocked it out of the park imo. It was so great how began with Prufrock and Vonnegut; one of the real pleasures is hearing him drop an apparent non sequitur like that and waiting to see how he'll make it relevant to his larger take.

one of the real pleasures is hearing him drop an apparent non sequitur like that and waiting to see how he'll make it relevant to his larger take.

Definitely. When he kicked off with Eliot and Vonnegut, it was one of those moments where you know you’re in for a helluva ride.

And because it took him so long to finish, I was able to read Slaughterhouse-Five, which I’d inexplicably missed, in the interim. Come to find out Ilium is based on a nearby town. Said town has a great record store where I recently picked up Roy Wood’s Boulders after hearing a snippet on the Move episode. It’s all a rich tapestry.

Also: Firesign Theatre!

I’ve enjoyed some of this guy’s books and those episodes of the podcast I have listened to but now it seems to have mushroomed into a jam band Dick’s Picks volume of material that I will never be able to catch up to in this lifetime.

I'm not even sure when I started this, but I've been making my way through it at least since last autumn and am almost caught up. Proud Patreon subscriber since probably four episodes in and I'm glad to see this getting more attention. I've tried to get so many friends interested in this, but so far nobody has bitten.

I just finally took the plunge, 1 episode in lol. Question for the devotees - will I miss a lot if I skip around? Does he do a lot of referring back to previous episodes, not repeating the context for something that is part of a multi-episode through line, etc? I'd love to be a completist but just seeing how the episodes get longer and longer I can't imagine I'm really gonna be able to do it

I think it's fine to pop in and out, every episode is fairly self-contained and he does say when some previous context is needed. I would start with one of the big recent episodes to see if it's your thing.

Personally, I highly recommend not skipping around for several reasons. I would have missed out on a LOT of fascinating information and tremendous music if I'd skipped some of the earlier songs that I unfamiliar or only somewhat familiar with -- the "Love Is Strange" episode in particular had something in it that utterly floored me.

He does often refer back to previous episodes without contextualizing, though that's not always the case. But for example, if you skipped ahead to the Love "Alone Again Or" episode, there's a reference to Johnny Otis's pigeon breeding. Huh?? Yeah, you'd have to go back to the episodes that talk about Johnny Otis (and there's more than a few) to get that story.

that I *was unfamiliar or only somewhat familiar with

started a while back, it's an incredible piece of work. to echo tarfumes i would say that it's worth going through in order - also for the fact that the episodes i found the most fascinating were not always the ones i was most excited about going in (for instance, bill haley)

in any case, the whole thing has been humbling! (in the old sense of the word) like i really thought i had a better than your average bear knowledge of the origins and early days of rock n' roll but this has been completely eye opening, so much i didn't know.

Just want to clarify that when I say he refers back to previous episodes without contextualizing, it's usually along the lines of mentioning someone in passing -- Gaynel Hodge, or George Goldner, say -- without always saying who they were or what they did.

Does he refer to the latter as "Record Man George Goldner"?

No, but sometimes he'll say "they signed to George Goldner's record label," but won't (and can't, without seriously derailing the episode) give more of the story of who Goldner was.

a reference to Johnny Otis's pigeon breeding.

otis was like the secret nexus of early rock n roll, he pops up every 3rd episode it seems like

I love that I've stuck to it strictly chronologically, to get the feel for it as the years pass. It gave me context for doo wop and vocal groups that made be appreciate those forms much more, which later on gives, say, James Brown's emergence a full band leader a lot more weight. Or how surf, folk revival, Merseybeat, British blues and Motown intertwined in 1962-64.

Just thinking that due to recent episode length you might be better checking out earlier shorter episodes. Though this is pretty high quality so you might just be swept up by an episode that is 2 or 3 hours long anyway.
But earlier episodes were much shorter though they do cover earlier era of music since he is developing a history like.
Just not sure where one would jump in as a neophyte. Couple of series ago he was doing hour and a half though.

another vote for starting from the beginning. like ums i thought i had reasonable grasp of rock history but i was quickly disabused of that notion. the social context discussed in the episodes on music from the 40s and early 50s were super interesting as well

I started at the beginning but then started a second run starting in 1966 since I'm doing some writing about that period right now (and I also kind of wanted to be current with others who were totally up to date). It's working fine for me to be in two places at once, but I do think you would miss something if you were just randomly dipping in here and there. Though it's impossible to remember every single thing he puts down there's a cumulative force to hearing everything that's happening, say, over several episodes in 1957.

As bendy mentions, the benefit of starting at the beginning is that it gives you an inkling of what it may have sounded like to hear, say, Blue Suede Shoes for the first time in 1956.
One thing he's really good at is highlighting what was innovative about a song/artist *at the particular moment in history*. So if you've haven't spent weeks working through the doo-wop episodes, this effect might be lost when you listen to the first rockabilly episode.
The whole thing really is telling a long-form story.

I keep thinking a new episode was posted every time this thread bumps. :(