Join us on the festival grounds in Lafayette, LA for the 25th annual Festival International. We’ll sample outstanding live performances in Cajun, Creole, Latin and Blues, including Keb Mo, Sonny Landreth, and Steve Riley. Be sure to get out your dancing shoes for cumbia with Miami’s Locos Por Juana, two-steps with Yvette Landry and cajun waltzes with the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Plus an all-star South Louisiana tribute to the best of swamp pop, Cajun classics and zydeco.

We’re bringing the blues from the clubs to the church this week on American Routes. The Campbell Brothers, from Rochester, NY, are masters of sacred steel. With both pedal and lap steel guitars, they summon the spirit in voice and sound. We’ll talk about growing up in the church and playing gospel blues on the guitar. Then, New Orleans bluesman Walter “Wolfman” Washington stops by the American Routes studio for a conversation about his life in the music and in the clubs around town.

Tune in and turn on to our nation’s fringe heritage. Along with their spiritual forefathers, the beatniks and folkies, our hippie generation latched on to great music before them—from old-time country and bluegrass, bebop, blues and more—and created their own versions. We’re joined by Maria Muldaur, who recalls making jug-band music in the West Village in the ’60s. Also, we speak with bass player Jack Casady, a founding member of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.