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Each week, American Routes brings you Shortcuts, a sneak peek at the upcoming show. Shemekia Copeland's dad, Texas guitarist Johnny Copeland, moved his family to Harlem, where Shemekia was born and grew up surrounded by hip-hop, but dedicated to the blues. She's been in the blues scene since she was a little girl singing at her dad's shows. We began back in those early days, on stage, with her father.

This is American Routes live for Labor Day weekend with some favorite performances from our series of concerts created with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. To kick it off, we asked the Pine Leaf Boys to make a big journey across the Atchafalaya swamp from Lafayette and their South Louisiana Cajun prairie homeland down the Mississippi River to New Orleans to play on a live stream as the pandemic closed the dancehalls of French Louisiana. It’s “Pine Leaf Boy Two-Step” on American Routes.

Yvette Landry wears many hats: musician, songwriter, educator, author, and record producer. Hailing from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Yvette grew up listening to music but wasn’t interested in playing music until later in life. After her dad was diagnosed with cancer, Yvette bought a bass for Cajun jam sessions with the Lafayette Rhythm Devils. She went on to join the female-led Cajun band Bonsoir, Catin, and now fronts the Yvette Landry Band. Though she’s performed internationally, Yvette has stayed close to home, teaching American Sign Language and songwriting at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers co-founder Chris Hillman is a musician, singer, songwriter, and author. A third generation Californian, Hillman grew up hearing Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, all on his parents’ hi-fi. He discovered bluegrass and picked up mandolin by way of Bill Monroe and the New Lost City Ramblers. At seventeen, Hillman joined his first band, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, a bluegrass group that included Eagles’ guitarist Bernie Leadon. He later played with the Golden State Boys, the resident bluegrass band for Los Angeles television’s Cal’s Corral, which became the Hillmen. I spoke to Chris Hillman over Zoom, where he told me how he was recruited to play bass for the Byrds at a studio rehearsal in L.A.

Los Cenzontles means “the mockingbirds” in the indigenous Nahuatl language. The band mixes traditional Mexican music with contemporary sounds including American rock and soul. They’ve collaborated with Linda Ronstadt, Taj Mahal, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, and Jackson Browne, but their main collaborators are children. Los Cenzontles is also a community-based arts academy that teaches music, dance, arts and crafts to its young students. We sat down with Los Cenzontles’ founder and guitarist Eugene Rodriguez and with singers Lucina Rodriguez, and Fabiola Trujillo.

This is American Routes with a tribute to the legendary New Orleans drummer, James Black. Black also composed tunes like "Monkey Puzzle" and "Dee Wee," both recorded by Ellis Marsalis' ensemble in the early 1960s. As a composer, Black received support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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 late Dr. Lonnie Smith of B-3 organ fame was a native of Buffalo, NY, where he got noticed sitting in with Jack McDuff. Lonnie Smith moved to New York City to join George Benson’s quartet and scored a solo record deal with Columbia. “Doc” Smith mixed jazz, soul, blues and pop in his own compositions, as well as covers of Coltrane, Hendrix and Beck. Growing up, Lonnie Smith sang gospel songs in church and at home. His brothers played guitar and drums. Lonnie’s first instrument came to him magically, he says, “almost like in a movie.”

Susan Tedeschi grew up outside of Boston in a family of grocery store owners. Derek Trucks was raised in Jacksonville, Florida, listening to the Allman Brothers, his uncle Butch Trucks’ band. Worlds apart, Susan and Derek each honed their chops at local jams and pursued musical careers destined to collide. Susan attended the Berklee School of Music, toured with the Dead, and released eight solo albums. Derek played guitar in a later lineup of the Allman Brothers for fifteen years and released ten albums under his own name. Now married with two kids, the solo musicians joined forces in 2010 to form the Tedeschi Trucks Band. I spoke to them in 2017.

Alice Gerrard has been a musician, researcher, publisher, and advocate for old-time music for much of her life. She's best known for performing and recording bluegrass and country with West Virginian, Hazel Dickens. Alice produced Sprout Wings and Fly, a film about North Carolina fiddler Tommy Jarrell. Her introduction to old-time music happened at Antioch College in the 1950s with husband Jeremy Foster and friends. The couple soon moved to the D.C.-Baltimore area for work and found a community of traditional musicians and their followers. Alice Gerrard recalled those days.