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American Routes
American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music — blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Now in our 15th year on the air, American Routes explores the shared musical and cultural threads in these American styles and genres of music — and how they are distinguished.
For this Thanksgiving weekend special, we serve up a heaping course of sonic delights and give thanks to the artists and artisans keeping American roots cultures alive. Every year since 1982 the National Endowment for the Arts has presented Heritage fellowships — America’s highest honor in “folk & traditional arts.” We hear music from past award recipients including swamp boogie chanteuse Carol Fran and bluegrass crooner Del McCoury . And we go live to the 2017 NEA Heritage concert for songs and stories from Puerto Rican percussionist Modesto Cepeda , Hawaiian slack-key guitarist Cyril Pahinui , conjunto accordionist Eva Ybarra , Appalachian buckdancer Thomas Maupin, Danish accordionist Dwight Lamb , Piedmont blues harp player Phil Wiggins , folk music teacher Ella Jenkins , Alaskan weaver Anna Brown Ehlers and Armenian metalworker Norik Astvatsaturov .
