From Louis Armstrong to the White Stripes, 'St James Infirmary' Connects Folk Traditions to Jazz and Rock: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 3.1

Season 3 of Let It Roll: From the Beginning… opens with host Nate Wilcox talking to Robert W. Harwood about “I Went Down to St. James Infirmary” - a book about one song and about how confidently the history of a song can be wrong.

Almost everything widely believed about “St. James Infirmary” turns out to be untrue. It is not a variant of “The Unfortunate Rake,” the British broadside that gives us “Streets of Laredo” and “The Dying Cowboy.”

Listen to the episode to find out where the song came from.

We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter and calling the series Let It Roll: From the Beginning…to the End.

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