Americana/Roots • Music
American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music — blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Now in our 15th year on the air, American Routes explores the shared musical and cultural threads in these American styles and genres of music — and how they are distinguished.
“In the history of American radio, no series has come close to Nick Spitzer’s American Routes in exploring the many streams of this nation’s music.”
— Nat Hentoff, Wall Street Journal
American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music — blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Now in our 15th year on the air, American Routes explores the shared musical and cultural threads in these American styles and genres of music — and how they are distinguished.
The program also presents documentary features and artist interviews. Our conversations include Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, B.B. King, Dr. John, Dave Brubeck, Abbey Lincoln, Elvis Costello, Ray Charles, Randy Newman, McCoy Tyner, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others. Join us as we ride legendary trains, or visit street parades, instrument-makers, roadside attractions and juke joints, and meet tap dancers, fishermen, fortunetellers and more.
The songs and stories on American Routes describe both the community origins of our music, musicians and cultures — the “roots”— and the many directions they take over time — the “routes.”
Rebroadcast of first hour every Saturday at 7:00am.
October 5, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Flaco Jiménez / Eddie Palmieri
This week, feel the Pan-Latin vibe with guests Flaco Jiménez and Eddie Palmieri. San Antonio native and king of the conjunto accordion, Jiménez recalls his father’s influence on his playing. And NuYorican jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri talks about reshaping Latin bands with his La Perfecta group in the early 1960s. Plus, hear how Latin music influenced American roots rock, jazz and even Cajun music.
ListenSeptember 28, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Black & White Crossover in Country Music and Beyond… Plus Blues from Baton Rouge
This week on American Routes, we dip into crossover currents of country music sung by Black American performers, including Ray Charles, Ike and Tina Turner, and Fats Domino. We’ll also hear white musicians influenced by Black music: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Dylan. Then, it’s the Baton Rouge Blues legacy, with recordings from Buddy Guy, Slim Harpo, Silas Hogan, Tabby Thomas and the late harmonica man Raful Neal. Plus a live performance from Raful Neal’s son, Kenny Neal, a mouth harp and guitar player, now the senior statesman and artist from the Baton Rouge Blues scene.
ListenSeptember 21, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Santana Speaks: with Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Los Lobos
Carlos Santana speaks about playing music from the streets of Tijuana to the stage at Woodstock, launching his career in San Francisco, and his hopes for a global society explored on his album Africa Speaks. We’ll hear from the late Tito Puente, el Rey de los Timbales, who tells about the roots of tropical Latin jazz in Spanish Harlem and how he brought his instrument, the timbales, to the foreground by moving them from the back to the front of the stage. Steve Berlin and Cesar Rosas from Los Lobos talk about their mix of American pop and Mexican traditions, and we remember Celia Cruz, la Reina de Cuba, who we spoke to in 2001 about her musical beginnings in her beloved homeland, Cuba.
Read MoreSeptember 14, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Blues Routes Then & Now: with a Creole & Cajun Live Set from Cedric Watson & Chris Stafford
The blues carry us from back roads to city streets, with heartache and hope in jazz, country and folk music. We’ll hear old field recordings and new commentaries in blues from Cedell Davis, Guitar Slim, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Irma Thomas and Lucinda Williams. Then, it’s Cajun, zydeco, waltzes and two-steps and swamp pop soul from Beau Jocque, Clifton Chenier, and Carol Fran. Plus an interview and live performance from younger traditionalists Cedric Watson and the late Chris Stafford on French Louisiana accordion and fiddle in Creole zydeco and Cajun music.
Read MoreSeptember 7, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – American Routes Live & 50 Years of Beausoleil Part II
It's the best of American Routes Live–studio concerts and conversation in collaboration with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park–including Creole banjoist and songman Don Vappie, New Orleans's king of the jazz trumpet Kermit Ruffins, and an acoustic set from Rickie Lee Jones. Then, we return for the second part of our live set celebrating the music of the legendary Cajun band Beausoleil, lead by fiddler Michael Doucet with family and friends in their 50th year playing Louisiana French folk and popular music locally and globally… all in front of a packed hometown house in Lafayette, Louisiana!
Read MoreAugust 17, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Music and Healing: Part 2, 8/14/2024
Songs and stories of the healing power of music and its role in improving personal health with gospel singer Cora Harvey Armstrong, Apsaalooke rapper and fancy dancer Supaman, singer-songwriter Jesse Colin Young and Santana’s reflections on reincarnation. Plus, songs about the temptations of elixirs as fixers of pain and maladies of all kinds from the flu and plain old love sickness.
Read MoreAugust 10, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Rockabilly Rascal Chuck Mead & Heralding the Folk with Alice Gerrard, 8/7/2024
Chuck Mead, co-founder of the legendary Nashville country rock band, BR549 tells tales of being born into a Kansas family of musicians with their own radio show and infiltrating his way into a whole new Nashville underground music, bar and dance scene. Then, conversation with Alice Gerrard, musician, advocate for old time music and known for her collaboration with West Virginia native Hazel Dickens as a rare female bluegrass duo in the 1960s. Plus music from Bob Dylan, Wanda Jackson, The Balfa Brothers and Johnny Shines.
Read MoreAugust 3, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Street Beats with DJ Fontana , 7/31/2024
We got the beat. From second line rhythms and tap dance in the street, to funk in the studio and the cowbell on concert stage, rhythm’s something we all have. This week, check out the beats of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Cuban bandleader Cachao and tap-dancer Savoin Glover. Plus drummer Earl Palmer tells us about playing with Little Richard and Fats Domino. We’ll dig into the clave rhythm with Tom McDermott, and Elvis’ man in the pocket DJ Fontana keeps the beat with American Routes.
Read MoreJuly 27, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Making Music on Records & Excavating Shellac, 7/24/2024
We’re spinning jazz, country, blues, pop and roots music heard locally and globally for over a century on records and later on jukeboxes, in cafes, barrooms and juke joints. We’ll hear June Carter and Johnny Cash, New Orleans’ jazzmen Kermit Ruffins and Danny Barker, Robert Johnson, and the Rolling Stones…then and now. Plus we’ll travel the world from earlier in the 20th century in search of rare music on 78s as dug up by sonic researcher, Jonathan Ward, for his collection, “Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music.”
Read MoreJuly 20, 2024 Americana/Roots, Music
American Routes – Music of Healing & Elixirs: Little Freddie King, Anders Osborne, Dr. Michael White & Music Maker Relief Foundation, 7/17/2024
Join American Routes for two hours of wry humor, outlandish puns and gonzo attitude when we sit down with two high-flying musicians: Dan Hicks and Commander Cody. Mr. Hicks spins tales of sartorial genius and fine times in the ’60s as a ragtime-country-cowboy-jazz musician in San Francisco. And direct from the Adirondacks, we’ll spend time with the artist and bandleader Commander Cody to hear about his musical travels and travails with the Lost Planet Airmen, across the country and through space with stops in Texas, of course.
Read More