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I first visited with Norah Jones almost 20 years ago– you can see her hanging out at our old studios on the American Routes website. She was touring then with her first record, “Come Away With Me.” That went on to garner five Grammys. We dug into our archives for the second interview with Norah in 2011, talking about her country group, the Little Willies, and musical friends, including singer songwriter Richard Julian. Norah says the band owes a debt to “Wurlitzer Prize” by Willie Nelson’s old friend, the late Waylon Jennings.

Get out your Crayolas and sketchpads, as we fill in the spectrum of musical colors. Red-hot jazz, cool blues, what we see when we hear music. All those feelings will come to light as we dig back into the archives for our epic interview with the late New Orleans piano professor Henry Butler about his eclectic musical vision.

From our archives, it’s a visit with Yale anthropologist David Watts, an old friend of mine. David loves jazz and plays classical violin, but his true virtuosity is in the savannas and rain forests of East Africa, where he has long walked and worked gracefully among wild primates. David's been in it long enough that he's named many of his wild-primate colleagues after movie stars, classical composers, and jazz musicians. I asked him why we are so attracted to gorillas, monkeys and chimps.

Raul Malo was born in Miami to Cuban parents. In 1989 he started The Mavericks. Named for going against the grain, the Mavericks began in the punk and alternative scene and eventually found great success in country music, incorporating Latin, rockabilly, and pop sounds. By 2000, the group parted ways and Raul Malo pursued a solo career in LA. He joined Los Super Seven with Joe Ely, Freddy Fender, members of Los Lobos, Max Baca, Doug Sahm, and others. In 2012, Malo reunited with the Mavericks, releasing several albums and touring widely. In 2020, they released En Español, an album entirely in Spanish. Making a record like this took Raul many years of listening within and outside his family.

Come along for an historic jaunt around New Orleans, as we visit great nightclubs including the legendary Uptown institution Tipitina’s, founded by fourteen close friends in 1977, who wanted a place to hang out and hear players like Professor Longhair, Dr. John, James Booker, and the Neville Brothers. Some years ago, one of the original Tipitina’s founders, Jeanne Dumestre, told us about a 1973 letter that indirectly led to the founding of the club.

We’re live at Marigny Studios with Little Freddie King, an old school bluesman from McComb, Mississippi who lives in New Orleans’ 9th Ward. Little Freddie is a great teller of tales. During the session, we talked about his comings and goings in music, and I asked about the story behind his homemade first guitar.

Anders Osborne grew up on a remote Swedish island, made his way to the mainland, hitchhiked and sang his way across Europe, and eventually crossed the Atlantic to visit New Orleans. He had heard about the city from his merchant marine grandfather who lived here and also from his father, a jazz musician. In New Orleans, Anders finally felt at home, but his life in music began to mirror the city’s excesses and finally, its resilience.

Local DIY app building company Bloks is aiming to be the Wix of Apps. Instead of paying a developer a boatload of money to build your app you can do it yourself, for free.

This week on The Reading Life: Bestselling author Erik Larson, whose new book is “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance…

On this week's Louisiana Eats!, we'll hear a pair of heartfelt stories about the bonds of family. First, David Guas talks about the trip he took to his…