American Routes is blues and jazz, gospel and soul, rockabilly and country, Cajun and swamp pop, Tejano, Latin… and beyond. Songs and stories from musicians describe a deep and diverse nation with sounds and styles shared by all Americans. From the bayous to the beltways, from crossroads to crosstown, on interstates and city streets, turn up your radio for the sonic journey!
American Routes—produced in New Orleans since 1998
It’s Carnival Time!
February 11, 2026
From New Orleans to southern France, Trinidad to Brazil, we celebrate Mardi Gras masquerading and dancing to the beat of Carnival music. We’ll visit with Mardi Gras Indian Chief Monk Boudreaux as he suits up in handmade, feathered regalia and struts through the streets with his gang. Then, we travel to southern France for the Carnival parade and music of Nice, and costumed revelry a few hours east in the wine country town of Limoux. Back home in French Louisiana, it’s the Cajun Courir de Mardi Gras where beggar clowns dance for a chicken to put in a communal gumbo feast. Plus calypso, New Orleans brass bands, and rhythm & blues classics to keep the krewe mamboing through the end of Fat Tuesday.
NEXT WEEK
Piedmont Blues with Jontavious Willis & Andrew Alli and The Stooges Brass Band Live from New Orleans
We're digging into the Piedmont blues, a rich style that mixes ragtime, old-time country music, jazz, gospel, hollers, and historic popular songs. A conversation and music with two younger players in the tradition: guitarist/singer Jontavious Willis from rural Greenville, GA and harmonica player Andrew Alli from Richmond, VA. Plus music by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Elizabeth Cotten, Cannonball Adderly and Bob Wills. Then it’s the Stooges Brass Band from New Orleans in a live studio session.
Cosmic Saxophones: Charles Neville and Charles Lloyd
This week on American Routes, we give voice to the saxophone – an instrument revered by everyone from free jazzmen like Charles Lloyd to soul rocker Charles Neville, of the Neville Brothers. The late New Orleanian Charles Neville tells us how music carried him through his family, his neighborhood and a segregated South. Charles Lloyd, a real California dreamer, traces the roots of his modern, free style and musical collaborations back to the blues of Memphis. From the archives, we hear words and music of saxophone honker Sam Butera (Louis Prima), bebopper Sonny Rollins and modernist Yusef Lateef; plus recordings from Sidney Bechet, Lester Young, Louis Jordan, John Coltrane, and King Curtis.
Remembering Joe Ely & Raul Malo
Joe Ely, the West Texas songmaker and seminal figure of the Austin Cosmic Cowboy scene, passed away on December 15, 2025.
Raul Malo, the Miami-born and Cuban-descended singer and leader of The Mavericks, known for country, pop and roots rock, passed away on December 8, 2025.