Preston Lauterbach

Preston Lauterbach on "Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers."

Author Preston Lauterbach, who joined us recently to talk about his book “The Chitlin Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll,” returns to tell the story of a devastating 1940 fire at The Rhythm Club in Natchez, Mississippi – and the music it inspired.

Elvis Presley might be known as the "king of rock and roll" - but he certainly didn't invent the genre. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, a string of black-friendly venues throughout the Atlantic seaboard and Midwest played host to legends like B.B. King, James Brown, and Ike and Tina Turner, who were blending swing and blues to create the earliest sounds of rock 'n' roll. We'll take a look at these venues and the musicians who played them with the author of the new book "The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll," Preston Lauterbach, along with funk and blues artist Lee Fields.