The first person to record the rock and roll standard Kansas City was not a household name but an 18-year-old piano prodigy. Born Willie Littlefield Jr. on September 16, 1931 in El Campo, Texas, and raised in Houston, he was packing the clubs on Dowling Street by age 16, cutting sides for Eddie's Records and leading a band with school friend and saxophonist Don Wilkerson. His regional hit Little Willie's Boogie reached Los Angeles executive Jules Bihari, who signed him to Modern Records as a rival to Amos Milburn.

This episode explains why his 1949 single It's Midnight mattered so much: it popularized the triplet piano style that replaced the shuffle bounce with a relentless driving pressure and became the mechanical engine of early rock and roll. We follow the chart hits, the poaching of his best friend by Milburn, the 1952 Federal Records ...