This American Routes celebrates the blues during this, the official Year of the Blues—veering off Highway 61 to examine the east coast songster tradition and west coast/Kansas City jump blues. Maryland-based guitarist Warner Williams lets his guitar do most of the talking as he moves through a live set of Piedmont blues. Jump blues king and Creole chameleon Deacon John talks about his career as both a New Orleans sideman and fronting his own band, the Ivories. Plus great music from T-Bone Walker, Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt and more.

Jazz may have been born here, but by the 1950s the music of choice in New Orleans was rhythm & blues, and local talent topped the charts with songs like “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, “The Fat Man”, and “Working in the Coalmine”. We’ll talk to many key figures in New Orleans R&B, from hitmakers like Lloyd Price, Dr. John, and Aaron Neville and producers Allen Toussaint and Harold Battiste, to bandleader Dave Bartholomew and musicians like drummer Earl Palmer. Plus music recorded in New Orleans’ legendary J&M Studios by Little Richard, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, and funk, jazz, pop and soul along the way.