Deep in the heart of Texas, we visit with western swing trio The Hot Club of Cowtown, who started out in the bright lights of New York City and made a way to becoming a local favorite in Austin, Texas. We talk about hot clubs, 78 record collectors and hear songs about milk cows from some of the band’s favorite musicians. Then, from the Bay Area, Los Cenzontles celebrate their Mexican American roots through teaching and performance, and collaborate with artists like Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne. It’s milk cows and mockingbirds on American Routes.

Bessie Smith was called the “Empress of the Blues,” famed for her ability to be both regal and sensual in song and style. She was also her generation's highest-paid African American entertainer from her early days performing on Chattanooga street corners and her travels on the black vaudeville circuit to her decade as a top-selling recording artist touring in her own railroad car. We hear about Bessie Smith from artists who knew her personally as well as an historian and anthropologist who has studied her life and performances. Also, Bessie Smith songs from Alberta Hunter, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Catherine Russell; and a conversation with Annika Chambers, a 21st-century blueswoman.

There is no more recognizable family name in jazz from New Orleans and beyond than: Marsalis. We’re paying tribute to the late pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. who passed of COVID-19 in April 2020, and to his musical sons Branford (saxophone), Wynton (trumpet), Delfeayo (trombone) and Jason (drums and vibraphone). The conversation ranges from coming of age in a family of musicians, with expectations of performing at the highest level, to the interplay of traditional and modern jazz in New Orleans. Previously unheard are Wynton’s remarkable memorial oration and a live set with youngest son Jason Marsalis playing the music of his late father. It’s the enduring and thriving musical legacy of the Marsalis family this week on American Routes.

This Labor Day weekend, we’re rockin’ from the French Quarter Festival: a free, homegrown, four-day annual event featuring a vast array of local music presented on stages throughout the city’s oldest neighborhood. We’ll hear from trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, Creole banjo man Don Vappie, zydeco accordionist Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes and his Sunspots, the all-female Original Pinettes Brass Band, Latin rockers the Iguanas, and trombonist Corey Henry’s Tremé Funktet. Join us for music to chill by for the working women and men of our United States.