Picks of the week
History Listen: Rock
Audible, episodes weekly
St Vincent is your soothing host for this fine music lesson, starting in post-second world war America where jazz and blues merged in a “spilt booze and stale smoke palace”. The characters of the time are compelling subjects, particularly Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, who recorded an early version of Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog and went on to collaborate with Muddy Waters. St Vincent shows how this wasn’t just a man’s world. Hannah Verdier
