Groundwater: the blues beneath everything
Thomas StubbsThe blues isn’t a genre. It’s the groundwater — the current running under country, rock, jazz, and hip-hop, from Congo Square to the South Bronx. Groundwater is a podcast about American popular music and the boundaries the recording industry invented in 1927 to keep the same music sold to two audiences.
Three arguments run through it: that the blues-country split was manufactured by record labels at the 1927 Bristol Sessions; that the blues runs beneath all American popular music; and that when the music got political, the state went after the singers, not the songs — from Billie Holiday through the Dixie Chicks.
Hosted by Thomas Stubbs, adapted from his forthcoming book Race Records: The Lie That Split American Music — and the Blues That Ran Underneath. For readers of Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues, Kelefa Sanneh’s Major Labels, and Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.
- No. of episodes: 3
- Latest episode: 2026-05-26
- Music Music Commentary Music History
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