American Routes

03/09/2025

Jazz pianist Jason Moran started out in Houston playing classical music, but found his way to jazz through Thelonious Monk. We’ll learn more about his adventures in the NYC jazz scene. Then a conversation and tour around the piano with Philadelphia cabaret player and creator Heath Allen, plus music from Fats Waller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Herbie Hancock, and Sweet Emma: https://buff.ly/ykVuRoG

29/08/2025

This week on American Routes Shortcuts:
It's been twenty years since the storm and flood that left 80% of New Orleans underwater. We’re still rebuilding. Many New Orleanians haven’t come back; areas of the city remain empty, and musical leaders and recovery advocates like Dr. John and Allen Toussaint have passed. Some things have changed for the better, but we still remember what it was like before the storm.

New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas was among many who lost everything to Katrina: her home and her beloved nightclub, the Lion’s Den. Irma set up a temporary home in Gonzales, LA, about forty miles upriver. When Irma returned to her New Orleans house for the first time, the muck was deep. Seven feet of floodwater ruined everything inside except for a few posters on the wall. Two years after the storm, she was back living in New Orleans East and working on the house. We caught up with her in that year, while her front fence was being spray-painted.

This is American Routes, twenty years after the storm and flood that left 80% of New Orleans underwater. We’re still rebuilding. Many New Orleanians haven’t come back; areas of the city remain empty, and musical leaders and recovery advocates like Dr. John and Allen Toussaint have passed. Some t...

27/08/2025

27/08/2025

20 years ago, the levees failed after Hurricane Katrina and covered 80% of New Orleans in water. The Federal flood left a human and ecological disaster in its wake. We take a look back at the catastrophe, recovery and renewed hope for the culture of the Crescent City with Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Rebirth Brass Band and Allen Toussaint and archival audio from our first broadcast After the Storm in September 2005: https://buff.ly/Mo40OVc

22/08/2025

This week on American Routes: We are live with Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, 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 it’s like being in a band with his brother Michael.

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 broth...

20/08/2025

This week, we look back on a live concert celebrating the music of the legendary Cajun band Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, with family and friends in their 50th year of playing Louisiana French folk and popular music locally and globally, all in front of a packed hometown house in Lafayette, Louisiana: https://buff.ly/2mlVIWt

15/08/2025

This week on American Routes Shortcuts: 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, T***s and the Maytals, Son Volt, Carole King and John Coltrane.

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 t...

13/08/2025

We asked our listeners to help pick music and musicians that deal with the troubles we’re facing, and we added a few songs and singers that fit the mood as best we could, including the Staple Singers, Allen Toussaint, Woody Guthrie, T***s and the Maytals, Son Volt, Carole King, John Coltrane, Los Super Seven, Dr. John, and Tom Waits. So we’re just trying to make it real, and the big question remains: Compared to What?: https://buff.ly/mfydJeE

07/08/2025

Nuyorican jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri passed away on Wednesday, August 6, at the age of 88.

Palmieri built on the historic fusion of jazz and Latin Caribbean styles. In 1961, Eddie founded the legendary ensemble, La Perfecta; their sound popularized a mix of Puerto Rican and other styles with jazz. La Perfect was famous for exuberant vocals, tight dance rhythms, and driving trombones. Eddie Palmieri’s piano was at the center of it all. By the late 1960s, Palmieri began reaching into new jazz, classical, and other genres to enhance his sound.

You can find our interview with Eddie Palmieri here: https://www.amroutes.org/october-2024/2440?rq=eddie%20palmieri

The bandleader and pianist was one of the leading Latin musicians of his generation. He won multiple Grammys and was recognized as an NEA Jazz Master.

06/08/2025

A tribute to the late guitarist Jerry Garcia, who passed away 30 years ago this August. Featured is an exclusive interview with Garcia made during his 1989 visit to the Smithsonian Institution. Roots and branches of the Grateful Dead's sound take center stage in this mid-summer celebration in music and memory: https://buff.ly/bj6puM9

01/08/2025

Flaco Jiménez, king of the conjunto accordion, passed away Thursday, July 31, at age 86.

Leonard “Flaco” Jiménez was the most influential Texas-Mexican accordion player of his time. Flaco’s father, Santiago Jiménez Sr., helped create the style called “conjunto” or “la música norteña,” from rancheras to polkas. Flaco Jiménez was born in 1939 in San Antonio and carried his father's sound forward. In addition to singing, Flaco became famous for his rhythmic drive, inventive solos, and stage antics. From his 1950s teenage days playing local dances, Flaco emerged in the early ‘70s to record with Doug Sahm and Ry Cooder, and later Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos.

You can find our interview with Flaco Jiménez here: https://www.amroutes.org/october-2024/2440

Flaco Jiménez, the legendary Tejano accordionist whose career spanned seven decades, has died at the age of 86.

01/08/2025

This week on American Routes Shortcuts: James Chambers took the name Jimmy Cliff to reference the heights he would climb as a musician, singer, and actor. Since Cliff’s birth during a hurricane in rural Jamaica, people believed he was special. Cliff’s dissatisfaction with country life led him to Kingston, where he met Chinese-Jamaican record producer Leslie Kong, who helped launch his career with a 1962 hit, “Hurricane Hattie.” Cliff helped Jamaican music go global, performing in the film The Harder They Come. Jimmy Cliff told me how his voice carried him out into the world.

James Chambers took the name Jimmy Cliff to reference the heights he would climb as a musician, singer, and actor. Since Cliff’s birth during a hurricane in rural Jamaica, people believed he was special. Cliff’s dissatisfaction with country life led him to Kingston where he met Chinese-Jamaican ...