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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.

Donald Harrison is known as a modern jazz saxophonist here in New Orleans, and although he grew up hearing parades and funerals in his youth, his major influence was at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, under his teachers like Kidd Jordan and Alvin Batiste. Harrison spent years in New York City as one of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and later co-lead a modern jazz band in New York with New Orleans trumpet player Terence Blanchard. But Harrison never forgot his New Orleans roots…a place where jazz is still dance music. He also came home to his father Donald Harrison, Sr.’s traditions of song and street performance, suited up in sequins and feathers as a Mardi Gras Indian chief leading the Guardians of the Flame. Donald Harrison told me that his rooted, but worldly musical eclecticism began at home.

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.

This is American Routes, about to go live at the New Orleans Jazz Museum with keyboard wizard Davell Crawford on piano. In addition to being the Prince of New Orleans piano, Davell is a fine singer and wily raconteur who grew up in French Louisiana’s “hub city” of Lafayette and also in New Orleans. We’ll learn about his large musical career and interests, but first here’s his tribute tune to one of his greatest heroes, the late James Booker. It’s a “Song for James” on American Routes Live.

Country singer Kelsey Waldon grew up in the Ohio River bottoms of Ballard County, Kentucky, a place called “Monkey’s Eyebrow,” where her father runs a hunting lodge and her mother’s family has been farming for generations. Kelsey started writing songs at a young age, went to Nashville at nineteen, played in bars, studied songwriting and later released noted albums that landed her on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. It was there with the now late songman John Prine that she agreed to join his label, Oh Boy Records, in 2019, the first artist Prine had signed in fifteen years. Kelsey counts John as a mentor, but remembers the first encounter with music came from her nanny.

This is American Routes, about to go into the studio with Creole jazz and soul singer John Boutté. You may know him for singing his theme for the TV series Tremé. John comes from an African, French, Spanish, Native, and Irish family background that begins in the mid-18th century New Orleans. His immediate family numbered ten kids; singing was a household and street corner pastime. John counts the influence of jazz elders, like Paul Barbarin, Louis “Big Eye” Nelson, and Danny Barker, as well as New Orleans piano and vocal heroes like Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and James Booker. The quality of his voice has been recognized by Stevie Wonder. He's been paired in shows with Lou Rawls and Herbie Hancock. A New Orleans vocal icon who was raised in a storied, musical neighborhood. I asked John about it.

We’ve got jazz trumpeter from Preservation Hall, Wendell Brunious with his New Orleans All Stars. Wendell Brunious is from a famed New Orleans Creole jazz family. He is the son of Nazimova Santiago and John Brunious, Sr., a trumpeter who played with Onward Brass and Young Tuxedo Brass Bands, and Paul Barbarin. Wendell Brunious’ brother was the late John Brunious, Jr., also a trumpeter who lead the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Over the years, Wendell Brunious sang with Chief John and the Mahogany Hall Stompers in the 1960s. He studied at Southern University, worked with Danny Barker in the ‘70s, and later played on Bourbon Street and with Kid Thomas Valentine, Eureka Brass, Lionel Hampton, Linda Hopkins, Sammy Rimington and Louis Nelson. Right now it’s Wendell Brunious and band on American Routes Live.

Our guest is singer, pianist and octogenarian Tommy McClain, one of the last standing Louisiana swamp pop singers. He told us how much he enjoyed being on the road, singing for new audiences. Tommy is known in Louisiana for his hit 1966 cover of “Sweet Dreams” and his contributions to swamp pop. He’s also recorded gospel music, wrote songs for Freddy Fender and toured with the Dick Clark Road Shows in the 1960s. Tommy’s now back in the studio with Elvis Costello and producer C.C. Adcock and recorded a 2022 album I Ran Down Every Dream. Entertaining has been a constant for him since his early days in Pineville, LA singing for his family and listening to the Grand Ole Opry. But his whole path changed when he went to a concert nearby in Alexandria.

New Orleans guitar and banjo player Detroit Brooks got a start touring with his musical family, including father George Brooks Sr. of the gospel group Masonic Kings, and his sister, gospel singer Juanita Brooks. Detroit grew up downriver, living four blocks from Fats Domino, and was greatly influenced by the late Creole banjo and guitar player, Danny Barker. He created a festival in his memory. In addition to his career in music, Detroit worked as a barber and for Amtrak. He's well versed in traditional jazz, R&B, soul, and funk. He's here as bandleader of the Syncopated Percolators at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, playing “Hindustan,” on American Routes Live.

Don Bryant was the fifth of ten children, grew up listening to his father’s gospel group, and started singing in church at age five. Don began harmonizing with his family and neighbors and went on to form the Four Kings with his brothers singing on Dick “Cane” Cole’s popular WLOK radio show. The group joined up with Willie Mitchell’s band; Don Bryant was lead singer. Bryant later pursued a solo career, but mostly focused on writing material for other artists at Hi Records and continued singing in church. Don returned to singing secular music in his 70s after an invitation from Memphis soul band the Bo-Keys. He released an album in 2017, called “Don’t Give Up on Love,” his first secular album in 48 years. Don’s latest record, You Make Me Feel, came out in 2020.