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.

Creole accordion player Edward, “Eddie,” Poullard is a third-generation musician, born in Eunice, LA. He moved to Beaumont, TX, as a young child with his French-speaking family, and started learning music from father, John, a well-known old-time La-La accordionist. When he was nineteen, Eddie played house parties and church dances in his father’s group, the Poullard Family Band. He went on to learn from and tour with Creole fiddler Canray Fontenot. Eddie Poullard is also a master woodworker, specializing in building accordions. He keeps the tradition alive by teaching Creole and Cajun fiddle and accordion styles at festivals and music camps, as well as mentoring musicians from his community and own family.

We are live with BeauSoleil, the venerable Cajun roots, folk and modernist band, looking back and ahead after fifty years. Brothers Michael and David Doucet were joined by Michael’s son Matthew, also a fiddler and a fiddle maker. I asked David Doucet what’s it like being in a band with his brother Michael.

This is American Routes Live, I’m Nick Spitzer. 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.

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.

This is American Routes, I'm Nick Spitzer. It’s no secret, here and worldwide, we’re in a time of turmoil, in government, political attacks, secrecy and war. We asked you, our listeners, to help pick music and musicians that deal with the troubles, and we added a few songs and singers that fit the mood as best we could. They include the Staple Singers, Allen Toussaint, Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, Toots and the Maytals, Son Volt, Carole King and John Coltrane.

We celebrate the cultural minglings in New Orleans with a visit to the 2019 French Quarter Festival. This week, we’ll hear from Irma Thomas, the late Ellis Marsalis, the Preservation Hall Brass Band, Don Vappie and Evan Christopher, Bruce Daigrepont, Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony, the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars and Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band.

Our guest, Lil Ray Neal, has been referred to by his fans as the “Gentle Giant of the Blues.” You may know his father, who he is named after, Baton Rouge blues giant, Raful Neal. Or you may have heard his brother Kenny Neal on a previous American Routes show. Born in Erwinville, LA, now based in Baton Rouge, Lil Ray Neal has been working as a blues guitarist and vocalist for over 40 years, playing with artists John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Little Milton, Bobby Rush, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and B.B. King. Here on American Routes live, he’s taking the stage solo for a rare intimate performance at the The West Baton Rouge Museum, beginning with “Darlin’ You Know I Love You.”

The Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble carries on a women-led African American spiritual ritual, originally performed by enslaved Africans in the Northeast Louisiana Delta region of Franklin Parish before the Civil War. It combines Christian worship and the West African ring shout tradition. The Easter Rock is held the day before Easter, with call and response vocals and foot-stomping, honoring Jesus as they circulate with a train of swaying ribbon streamers on a large heavy banner representing the burden of the cross to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ. The Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble are the last known practitioners of the ritual, moving counter-clockwise around a white table representing Christ’s tomb. Leader, the elder Hattie Addison spoke with me and led the group in song and steps.

Singer Allison Russell is a native of Montreal with what she calls “Grenadian Canadian” roots of Afro-Caribbean and Scottish ancestry. You may know her recordings with Our Native Daughters and the Birds of Chicago, or back when with Po’ Girl. In her first solo recording, Outside Child, Russell addressed family abuse in her youth, followed by escape to the road: Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago. Those early life experiences led Allison years later to make new, compelling songs, expressing freedom from trauma, to love and hope for better times. She lives now with fellow musician JT Nero and their young daughter in Nashville, but Allison Russell began the journey’s narrative in her beloved Montreal.