Roy Brown wrote Good Rockin' Tonight, the song widely credited as the first major hit to use the word rock to describe a musical style rather than a bedroom euphemism. His gospel-rooted melisma became the vocal blueprint for B.B. King, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard, James Brown, and Elvis Presley, and in 1952 he became one of the first artists to sue a major label for unpaid royalties and win. Then came the blacklist, prison for tax evasion, the sale of his most famous song, and years selling encyclopedias door to door. This episode traces the foundation of rock and roll and the man who poured the concrete and was buried under it.

We begin in Kinder, Louisiana, with a church organist mother, a birth year that promotional materials shaved from 1920 to 1925, and a stint as a welterweight boxer in Los Angeles. Brown won a 1945 contest at the M ...