Blues…it’s a universal solvent in music. There’s blues in jazz, R & B, roots rock and soul, country, Cajun, Latin, funk, hip-hop, rock and pop… It’s everywhere! We’ll hear from all corners of the musical map including Bessie Smith, Buddy Guy, Freddy Fender and Clifton Chenier and more. Then an hour with Octogenarian electric country blues man Little Freddie King live from Marigny Studios in New Orleans.

These are contentious times of conflicting emotions surrounding war and peace. This holiday weekend we bring songs and sounds for your consideration, concern, and hopefully solace. We’ll hear words and music from Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Mavis Staples and Charles Lloyd. Plus Sacred Steel guitar live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival from the Campbell Brothers.

The late Texas singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver was a prolific composer who drew inspiration from his life experiences: turning horses to working in a sawmill; his relationship with religion and his family. All raw material for honing classic country songs, many of which are anthemic in the Outlaw Country music scene of yore. Then, the former Crawfish Queen of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Yvette Landry, shares stories of coming to music and song-making later in life, and her work with the “Godfather of Swamp Pop,” Warren Storm. Plus words and music from Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Marcia Ball and Fats Domino.

We’re going “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” as the 1920s Tin Pan Alley pop song had it. It’s one of many songs written about our home place. We’ll hear some of those and go beyond to blues and jazz, roots rock and soul, gospel and country, Tejano, zydeco and swamp pop. We offer a diverse mix with Charlie Pride, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Adia Victoria, Aretha Franklin and Louis Armstrong, with sounds ranging from critique to guilty pleasures.

We go where the music leads us, first live at home with trumpeter Wendell Brunious and his New Orleans All Stars. Wendell is from a famed New Orleans Creole jazz family and is now the music director of Preservation Hall. Then we visit with the eccentric and witty songmaker and multi-instrumentalist Susan Werner with roots in rural Iowa. Susan’s stories in song are comedic and serious takes on religion, queerness, climate change and social responsibility. Plus words and music from Big Mama Thornton, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Cash and the Five Satins.