This week on American Routes, we dip into crossover currents of country music sung by Black American performers, including Ray Charles, Ike and Tina Turner, and Fats Domino. We’ll also hear white musicians influenced by Black music: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Dylan. Then, it’s the Baton Rouge Blues legacy, with recordings from Buddy Guy, Slim Harpo, Silas Hogan, Tabby Thomas and the late harmonica man Raful Neal. Plus a live performance from Raful Neal’s son, Kenny Neal, a mouth harp and guitar player, now the senior statesman and artist from the Baton Rouge Blues scene. 

Carlos Santana speaks about playing music from the streets of Tijuana to the stage at Woodstock, launching his career in San Francisco, and his hopes for a global society explored on his album Africa Speaks. We’ll hear from the late Tito Puente, el Rey de los Timbales, who tells about the roots of tropical Latin jazz in Spanish Harlem and how he brought his instrument, the timbales, to the foreground by moving them from the back to the front of the stage. Steve Berlin and Cesar Rosas from Los Lobos talk about their mix of American pop and Mexican traditions, and we remember Celia Cruz, la Reina de Cuba, who we spoke to in 2001 about her musical beginnings in her beloved homeland, Cuba.

The blues carry us from back roads to city streets, with heartache and hope in jazz, country and folk music. We’ll hear old field recordings and new commentaries in blues from Cedell Davis, Guitar Slim, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Irma Thomas and Lucinda Williams. Then, it’s Cajun, zydeco, waltzes and two-steps and swamp pop soul from Beau Jocque, Clifton Chenier, and Carol Fran. Plus an interview and live performance from younger traditionalists Cedric Watson and the late Chris Stafford on French Louisiana accordion and fiddle in Creole zydeco and Cajun music. 

It's the best of American Routes Live–studio concerts and conversation in collaboration with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park–including Creole banjoist and songman Don Vappie, New Orleans's king of the jazz trumpet Kermit Ruffins, and an acoustic set from Rickie Lee Jones. Then, we return for the second part of our live set celebrating the music of the legendary Cajun band Beausoleil, lead by fiddler Michael Doucet with family and friends in their 50th year playing Louisiana French folk and popular music locally and globally… all in front of a packed hometown house in Lafayette, Louisiana!