From healing songs and expressions of pain to hoodoo cure-alls and feel-good elixirs, we explore the musical world of sickness and health. We talk with Mississippi-born guitarist Little Freddie King about how the blues saved many of his nine lives. New Orleans songwriter and rocker Anders Osborne tells of a journey that led to self-medicating with pain relievers that do more harm than good, and his eventual recovery. Tim Duffy of the Music Maker Relief Foundation in North Carolina explains the curative properties of music on society and his work with Taj Mahal to help deep-roots musicians in need. And clarinetist Dr. Michael White talks of jazz and its role in his and New Orleans’ recovery after Katrina. Plus, medicine show troubadours hawk their tonics, Dr. John prescribes Mama Roux’s healing potions, and Huey “Piano” Smith gives us a serious case of “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu.”

As part of our annual Thanksgiving tradition, we celebrate America’s diverse heritage by spotlighting this year’s National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellows—recognized for their excellence in folk and traditional arts. Live in concert, Texas guitar maven and singer Barbara Lynn commands the stage with her brand of Gulf Coast rhythm & blues; old-time fiddler Eddie Bond shreds Appalachian style; Don & Cindy Roy from Gorham, Maine, punch out French reels; and New York City cultural documentarian Ethel Raim sings a Yiddish song of her own. We talk tradition and technique with Native American basket weaver Kelly Church; Palestinian embroiderer Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim; rodeo tailor Manuel Cuevas; Chicana altarista Ofelia Esparza and African American quilter Marion Coleman. And we revisit performances and conversations with past NEA fellows like Hawaiian slack-key guitarist Ledward Ka’apana, circus aerialist Dolly Jacobs, soul singer Mavis Staples, and the late guitar virtuoso Doc Watson, among others.

From small-town Louisiana to Memphis, from hellfire to honky tonk, we trace the meteoric rise, fall, and rebound of rock-n-roll’s most wayward son—Jerry Lee Lewis. We talk to the Killer about his hits, his misses, and being the last man standing of the “Million Dollar Quartet,” which also included Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins. Jerry Lee’s sister Frankie Jean Lewis, a.k.a. the Chiller, gives us a tour of the family’s homestead in Ferriday, LA. Natchez, MS bluesman Hezekiah Early shares memories of Haney’s Big House, the Chitlin’ Circuit nightclub where underage Jerry Lee sneaked in to hear boogie woogie. Drummer J.M. Van Eaton describes what it was like to record with the Killer during his early Memphis days. Sun Records publicist Barbara Sims recalls the scandal that derailed the piano man’s career. And Linda Gail Lewis nicknamed the Thriller, tells of her brother’s second act as a country star and the string of duets they recorded together, as well as her career as a pianist and dueting with Van Morrison. Plus, we hear Jerry Lee Lewis’s collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, and Gillian Welch, among others. All killer, no filler, this week on American Routes.