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American Routes
Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 6 p.m.

American Routes is a two-hour weekly excursion into American music, spanning eras and genres—roots rock and soul, blues and country, jazz, gospel and beyond.

Latest Episodes
  • This is American Routes for St. Patrick's, with singers, fiddlers and pickers from Ireland to Appalachia live in this hour. Sharing Irish, bluegrass and country tunes with one another at the 80th National Folk Festival. Beginning with brothers Rob and Ronnie McCoury playing banjo and mandolin on stage in Salisbury, Maryland, 2021 with Ronnie's tune, " Quicksburg Rondevouz."
  • In Lafayette today, our guests are Cedric Watson and Chris Stafford, part of a younger generation that is preserving Cajun and Creole culture by playing the music. Cedric Watson, a fiddler and accordionist who grew up in San Felipe, TX, taught himself the Creole language spoken by some of his elders. Cedric eventually moved to Lafayette where he became involved with several great bands, from the Pine Leaf Boys to his own group, Bijou Creole. Also in Bijou Creole is Chris Stafford, a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and researcher, known for co-founding the band Feufollet when he was eleven years old. We’ll soon hear a bit of Chris and Cedric’s duo set live, but first, I asked the two of them about how playing traditional French music as a duo is different than a full band. Cedric Watson:
  • This week on American Routes, it’s a rare Leap Year show with Guilty Pleasures and Forgotten Treasures. As the 29th of February rolls around we take stock of our circles round the sun, just for cosmic fun, not so much to analyze but to imagine our years in space and time. We’ll have music from fellow travelers: The Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, King Pleasure, and Sun Ra.
  • The Carolina Chocolate Drops began as a seminal African American group that revived the old-time string band tradition of the Piedmont where Black performers were formative from the 19th century onward. The Chocolate Drops started out as the Sankofa Strings after meeting at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, NC in 2005. They evolved over the next decade. Rhiannon Giddens, trained formally in opera, played banjo and fiddle and sang with her bandmates to growing audiences.
  • Our guest this hour is the late Bob French, a traditional jazz drummer, local radio host, and trenchant commentator on the New Orleans scene, famous for his love of local music. He and I sat down to talk things over a little while back on a comfy couch before his show at the DBA Club downriver in Faubourg Marigny. His father Albert French was a banjo player, but the band tradition goes back to the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra early in the 20th century.
  • The Black Masking Indians of New Orleans Carnival—some say Mardi Gras Indians—are neighborhood groups with roots in the late 19th century that include a Chief, a Queen, and roles like Flag Boy, Spy Boy, and Wildman. The Indians are on foot dressed in large, complex, beaded suits depicting Black and Native American histories as warriors with a crown of feathers. They sing, backed by a handmade rhythm section. I walked with Big Chief Tyrone Casby, an educator in everyday life, among his tribe, the Mohawk Hunters, their families and friends in Algiers, on the West Bank of New Orleans.
  • Mona Lisa Saloy is a folklorist, poet, professor, and in 2021 was named Louisiana Poet Laureate. Her poems document and celebrate Creole culture in New Orleans, food, language, music, and more. She's written about sidewalk songs, jump-rope rhymes, hand-clap games, and the Black oral tradition of toasting. Mona Lisa's poetry grew from her youth in New Orleans' Seventh Ward, where music was a major part of life.
  • Our guest Jonathan Ward is an expert on finding music on antique records. His collection, Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music includes one hundred 78 RPM recordings and stories from around the world, almost all of which have never been heard since they were first produced. The collection features music from six continents and eighty-nine different countries and regions, recorded between 1907-1967. It was nominated for the Best Historical Album Grammy Award in 2022. I asked Jonathan what drew him to the mostly shellac era of 78 RPMs.
  • The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band has been playing together since 1977. The band includes husband and wife Marc and Ann Savoy, on accordion and guitar respectively, and Michael Doucet of Beausoleil on fiddle. The trio has presented traditional Cajun music at Louisiana dance halls, major music festivals, and presidential inaugurations. They recently played a Cajun dance party in New Orleans’ French Market for the National Treasures Tour of Culture Bearers in National Parks. I sat down back home with the Savoys and Michael Doucet to talk about the band and their relationship as friends, family, and musicians. First, I asked Marc Savoy about his choice to continue family traditions of making and playing accordions.
  • Cyril Neville, the youngest of the Neville fraternal order, grew up surrounded by New Orleans rhythm and blues hit makers, like James Booker, Earl King, and his brother Art, whose band the Hawketts recorded “Mardi Gras Mambo” in 1954. Cyril got an early start in music playing percussion with his uncle Jolly’s Mardi Gras Indian tribe, the Wild Tchoupitoulas. He joined Art’s funk group, the Meters, in the early ‘70s, and in 1977, Cyril and Art teamed up with Aaron and Charles to form the Neville Brothers. Cyril later founded his own group, Endangered Species, and has become a community and environmental activist, especially in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Cyril spoke of his musical beginnings some seventy years ago.