AMERICAN ROUTES
Blues and Jazz, African Roots and Branches with Shemekia Copeland & Balla Kouyaté Blues and Jazz, African Roots and Branches with Shemekia Copeland & Balla Kouyaté May 18th, 2022 (Hour 1)
Blues and Jazz, African Roots and Branches with Shemekia Copeland & Balla Kouyaté

It’s Blueswomen, Jazzmen, African roots and branches. Chicago blues singer Shemekia Copeland‘s father, the late blues guitarist Johnny Copeland, brought her into his music as a child. As an adult, she found new ways to use blues to express her perspective. We’ll hear from some of Shemekia’s heroes including Etta James, Ruth Brown, Alberta Hunter and Big Mama Thornton. Then a conversation and performance by Boston-based Mandinka balafon player Balla Kouyaté and music inspired by and from the continent of Africa from Randy Weston, Miriam Makeba and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Shemekia Copeland photo by Mike White

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SONGS OF RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS: JOAN SHELLEY AND JEFF LITTLE

August 12th, 2020

This week we visit with two Southern crafters of music and song. Kentucky native and guitarist Joan Shelley takes her ethereal songwriting and voicing of life’s emotional flow from observations on the banks of the Ohio River near Louisville. Then, the virtuosic Blue Ridge pianist Jeff Little shares his stories of growing up playing alongside the legendary flat-pick guitarist Doc Watson at the family’s music store in Boone, North Carolina. It led to a singular career of playing high speed fiddle tunes on the piano. Also music of love, loss, and fast trains with Bill Frisell, Johnny Cash, James Brown, Tom Waits and Elizabeth Cotton.

  • Listen to Hour One
  • Listen to Hour Two

HOUR ONE

  • Brighter Than the Blues Joan Shelley
    Over and Even, No Quarter
  • This Place Joni Mitchell
    Shine, Joni Mitchell
  • Lonesome Bill Frisell
    Harmony, Blue Note
  • Pretty Fair Miss in a Garden Doug and Jack Wallin
    Doug & Jack Wallin: Family Songs and Stories from the North Carolina Mountains, Smithsonian Folkways
  • Pretty Little Miss Joan Shelley and Doug Paisley
    Rivers and Vessels, No Quarter Records
  • Instrumental: Keep On the Sunnyside Bill Frisell
    Beautiful Dreamers, Savoy
  • Kentucky Everly Brothers
    Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, Barnaby Records
  • Blue Kentucky Girl Loretta Lynn
    Blue Kentucky Girl, MCA Nashville
  • Banks of the Ohio Johnny Cash
    Unearthed, American Recordings
  • SEGMENT: Joan Shelley

    Listen
  • Instrumental: Timoney's Nathan Salsburg
    Third Nathan Salsburg , No Quarter
  • Beat the Retreat June Tabor
    Beat the Retreat: Songs of Richard Thompson, Capitol
  • Urge for Going Tom Rush
    The Circle Game, Elektra
  • End Bed: Dandelion River Run Richard and Mimi Fariña
    The Complete Vanguard Recordings , Vanguard

HOUR two

  • Open Bed: Billy in the Low Ground Jeff Little
    Just a Little Music, self-released
  • Freight Train Boogie Doc Watson
    The Elementary Doctor Watson!, Tomato
  • Casey Jones Grateful Dead
    Workingman's Dead, Warner
  • Night Train James Brown
    The 50th Anniversary Collection, UTV
  • 2:19 Tom Waits
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards , -anti
  • Memphis Mail Scott Dunbar
    Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris, Dust to Digital
  • Instrumental: Big Sky Jeff Little
    Just a Little Music, self-released
  • SEGMENT: Jeff Little

    Listen
  • Going Back to the Blue Ridge Mountains The Delmore Brothers
    The Delmore Brothers, Vol. 2, Classic
  • (Oh Susanna) Dust off that Old Pianna Fats Waller
    The Essential Fats Waller, Sony
  • Chicken Shack Boogie Amos Milburn
    Down the Road Apiece-The Best of Amos Milburn, Capitol
  • Instrumental: Tipitina and Me Allen Toussaint
    Our New Orleans, Nonesuch
  • Take Five Dave Brubeck
    Time Out, Columbia
  • Brighter than the Blues Joan Shelley
    Over and Even, No Quarter
  • I'm Going Away Elizabeth Cotton
    Shake Sugaree, Smithsonian Folkways
  • Careless Love Snooks Eaglin
    Classic African American Songsters , Smithsonian Folkways
  • Closing bed: Careless Love Etta Baker
    Railroad Bill, Cello

THE LATEST STREAMS

  • May 18th, 2022

    BLUES AND JAZZ, AFRICAN ROOTS AND BRANCHES WITH SHEMEKIA COPELAND & BALLA KOUYATé

    Listen
  • May 11th, 2022

    BREAKING OUT: BRITISH BLUES TO NEW ORLEANS BOUNCE

    Listen
  • May 4th, 2022

    KINGPINS OF THE GULF COAST: RODNEY CROWELL & DR. JOHN

    Listen
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