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A vegetable that often masquerades as a fruit in sweet dishes, rhubarb is a true harbinger of the season, appearing in April and, if we're lucky, lasting until July. You can save some for an off-season fix, too, because it freezes and thaws beautifully.

It all comes down to this. After months of campaigning, ups and down, Election Day is here. Here's what to watch, as the night unfolds.

Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, was the first African American superstar, an artist that mingled regal dignity with sensuality. We’ll sample her recorded legacy, talk with critics and hear memories of her contemporaries from the Jazz Age of the 1920s.

Poppy speaks with Brazilian-born Ana Riehlmann about self-publishing her cookbook, traces Gulf Coast history with Felder Rushing, and learns about a…

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."

Pianist Tom McDermott is a native of St. Louis and a lifetime explorer of the music downriver here in New Orleans, across the Caribbean and to Brazil. Singer Meschiya Lake started out in Rapid City, South Dakota and landed hereabouts as a circus performer. Meschiya and Tom came together for us in the sonic wooden glory of an old Presbyterian church, now called Esplanade Studios.

Houston Texan Annika Chambers is a rare old school blues and soul singer in her early 30s. During two tours of duty in the U.S. Army, including Iraq, Chambers started to reach a wider public when a colonel heard her singing gospel and asked her to do the National Anthem. She then brought her big voice to the blues playing Army base shows and finally debuting in 2015 with the CD Making My Mark. We caught up with Annika the morning after a triumphant late night show in Butte, Montana 2018. Annika told us that her parents were young teens and took us back to her own youth raised by grandma.

This is American Routes Live with New Orleans trombonist Corey Henry and his Treme Funktet at Marigny Studios, at the edge of the French Quarter. As the name of the band suggests, the Faubourg Tremé is an important part of Corey’s family history and his development as a musician. I asked him about the origins of the group.

James Chambers took the name Jimmy Cliff to reference the heights he would climb as a musician, singer, and actor. Since Cliff’s birth during a hurricane in rural Jamaica, people believed he was special. Cliff’s dissatisfaction with country life led him to Kingston where he met Chinese-Jamaican record producer Leslie Kong, who helped launch his career with a 1962 hit, “Hurricane Hattie.” Cliff helped Jamaican music go global performing in the film The Harder They Come. Jimmy Cliff told me how his voice carried him out into the world.

Lonnie Holley from Birmingham, Alabama is a self-taught artist and musician who uses everyday objects as sculpture that tells stories. Lonnie had a rough childhood, living with an abusive foster family who ran honky-tonk, where he was nicknamed “Tonky” McElroy. Lonnie tried to escape, hopping a train to New Orleans at nine. He was arrested at eleven and taken to the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, where Lonnie was made to pick one hundred pounds of cotton. His grandmother rescued him from the school and told him his name wasn’t Tonky McElroy but Lonnie Bradley Holley. For the last forty years, Holley has constructed artworks that have been seen at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, New York’s American Folk Art Museum, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the White House. After making home recordings for more than two decades on a keyboard Lonnie bought at a pawnshop, he released his first album at age sixty-two. His sound is experimental with lyrics improvised on the spot. Lonnie Holley explained how his artistic appreciation and ability stemmed from life at home with a large family.