A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs
I loaded the dishwasher last night listening to episode 2 of "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs". Andrew Hickey gets into the wonderful weeds about the difference between shuffle (strong beat on 1, no backbeat) vs. boogie woogie vs. the backbeat in rock and roll.
“Roll ‘Em Pete” has the first recorded example — as far as anyone has been able to discover — of a boogie song which uses a backbeat rather than a shuffle beat.
This may as well say, "water was discovered to have two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms" or "this was the first known use of the wheel". You can feel the ground shake under something like that. Then he covers the 1941 ASCAP boycott and the musicians’ union strike of 1942–44, and I realize I don't know nearly as much about music as I thought I did.
I'm very late to the party on this podcast, but I will happily plod along in order. He's up to episode 181 now, with 319 to go. An incredible, quixotic commitment.
I very much like Hickey's "AI" Statement, which ends with:
If I want to find information, I will find it out from things that actual human beings have written, and if I want to say something I will say it myself, in my own words.