We continue our trip west on Route 66, all the way to the end of the line at the Santa Monica pier in California. With music by Los Lobos, Wes Montgomery, Michelle Shocked, and Woody Guthrie.

Music as literature—a concept explored by songwriter, singer and guitarist Laura Cantrell, who joins us to talk about her picaresque journey from Nashville to New York. And writer, cultural critic and Boston native Nat Hentoff recalls his famous associations from Charles Mingus to Billie Holiday and why Charlie Parker loved country music. Plus Delhi, LA soul man Toussaint McCall talks about the writing of his magnum opus “Nothing Takes the Place of You.” Country, jazz, blues, R&B and more come together for this hardcover edition of American Routes.

Guitarist, fiddler, vocalist, swingster Gatemouth Brown hails from the rich musical territory along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. A genre-bending, oil-patch bluesman who loves country and Cajun music as much as jazz, he offers his tart opinions of life and art between puffs on that pungent pipe of his. Non-smokers have no fear, the show is not offered with “smellaround sound,” but is does come with a music mix well-suited to Gatemouth’s eclectic sartorial taste for Hawaiian shirts and cowboy hats.