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.

This is American Routes digging into the archive for one of my all-time favorite interviews with the late Dolly Parton in 2000. Dolly passed away on August 25, 2026.

The Historic New Orleans Collection spotlights Maria Bonilla.

This week on American Routes Shortcuts, we bask in the summer heat and listen to our favorite versions of the George Gershwin classic, “Summertime,” from the 1934 opera Porgy and Bess.

This is American Routes, following the roots of doo-wop music into rock and roll as part of the life of singer and songmaker Dion DiMucci. Dion was born into a Bronx, New York Italian family in 1939. His father was in vaudeville. Dion gained notoriety as a singer with an appearance on American Bandstand. Back in the neighborhood, he made street music called doo-wop. I asked Dion how an immigrants’ son from the Bronx was able to channel the Southern music of his youth into doo-wop and rock and roll.

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.