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This week, we’re recalling the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr, where we’ll hear memories from those who knew him. Mabel John has been a Los Angeles community preacher for more than twenty years, but she earned fame as an R&B singer with both Motown and Stax Records. Her family of ten children grew up singing gospel music together and later the blues. Mabel's brother, Little Willie John, is famous for his song, “Fever.” When Mabel was an R&B singer, she met Martin Luther King.

In the absence of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, originally rescheduled for this month, we pay tribute to its founder, the late George Wein, by revisiting his creative work with the influential Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals. George Wein passed away on September 13, 2021. George Wein grew up during the Depression in a Jewish neighborhood near Boston. He heard religious cantorial music, pop songs, and eventually jazz. After World War II, Wein was playing gigs on piano before finding his niche as a club owner, concert organizer, and jazz impresario. He started the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, followed by the Folk Festival in 1959. George Wein sat with us at his home on New York’s Upper East Side to talk about his early experiences with music.

The New Orleans Saints finished their season with a 12-6 record, including their first playoff win in the cold, on the road. WWNO’s Jason Saul sat down…

Taxpayers may be on the line for hundreds of thousands of dollars if the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East has to withdraw its lawsuit

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.

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.

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.

Guitarist Jim Kweskin has been making jug band music for over half a century. He started performing in the 1950s at the famed Club 47 in Boston, and in the 1960s, the Jim Kweskin Band with Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond and Mel Lyman emerged as interpreters and innovators of the jug band style for a national audience. I asked Jim how he first became aware of Southern folk music, Gus Cannon and the jug bands of the 1920s.

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.

It’s summertime, the kids are out of school, and Hollywood is, once again, following the money.“Right now you can literally go see Fast and Furious 6 at…