For New Year's, we celebrate the diversity built into our country by digging into the musical traditions that inform our democracy at its best. We talk with Mr. Sipp, a hip blues and gospel man from McComb, Mississippi, and Sheryl Cormier, the octogenarian Cajun accordion queen from Grand Coteau, Louisiana. Plus music from Bo Diddley, Big Maybelle, Bob Dylan, La Santa Cecilia, and Santana. In these tough times, ring in the New Year with us on American Routes. 

It’s that time of year when the days are shorter and the nights are colder. Warm up to our sounds for the season. Classic songs to celebrate the winter holidays, plus a visit to South Louisiana’s Christmas Eve bonfires, lighting the way for Papa Noel along the Mississippi River.

This week, we visit with two Southern crafters of music and song. Kentucky native and guitarist Joan Shelley takes her ethereal songwriting and voicing of life’s emotional flow from observations on the banks of the Ohio River near Louisville. Then, the virtuosic Blue Ridge pianist Jeff Little shares his stories of growing up playing alongside the legendary flat-pick guitarist Doc Watson at the family’s music store in Boone, North Carolina. It led to a singular career of playing high-speed fiddle tunes on the piano. Also music of love, loss, and fast trains with Bill Frisell, Johnny Cash, James Brown, Tom Waits and Elizabeth Cotton.

We meet Raul Malo, the Miami-born and Cuban-descended singer and leader of The Mavericks, known for country, pop and roots rock. We’ll talk about that and Latin music, all behind the band’s huge success in country music and their successful all-Spanish language recording. Then a live concert and conversation with the Pine Leaf Boys as Louisiana French two-steps meet rock n roll. Plus music from Celia Cruz, Patsy Cline, Los Lobos and Professor Longhair.

From Great Britain to the Big Easy, we explore the sounds of musical and social breakouts. First, we hear how the late British blues pioneer John Mayall broke out of England with his band the Bluesbreakers, bringing British blues to a larger audience. We’ll hear some of Mayall’s sources and contemporaries, like Big Maceo and Eric Clapton. Then, it’s butt shakes and backbeats with Big Freedia, the Queen Diva of New Orleans Bounce, a rhythmic dance music with sources in hip hop and rap, as well as much earlier jazz and R&B. We’ll explore some of those sources, and strut with Kermit Ruffins and Sam Morgan, head “Down Yonder” with Smiley Lewis, and “Take it to the Street” with Rebirth Brass Band.