22/04/24 American Routes: MUSIC CIRCUS
Arlo Guthrie once sang, ‘You can get anything you want,,.at Alice’s Restaurant…”
Well, the same can be said of FM radio.
FM radio offers news, daily commentaries, thoughtful programs like TED Radio Hour, The Moth Radio Hour, This American Life, and The New Yorker Radio Hour.
For a music lover, there’s American Routes. http://americanroutes.wwno.org/archives/show/1270/Music-Circus
American Routes is blues and jazz, gospel and soul, rockabilly and country, Cajun and swamp pop, Tejano, Latin… and beyond. Songs and stories from musicians describe a deep and diverse nation with sounds and styles shared by all Americans. From the bayous to the beltways, from crossroads to crosstown, on interstates and city streets, turn up your radio for the sonic journey!
The weekly radio program is produced in New Orleans by Nick Spitzer, who created it in 1998.
Over the years, Spitzer’s had conversations with Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, B.B. King, Dr. John, Dave Brubeck, Elvis Costello, Ray Charles, Randy Newman, McCoy Tyner, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis and scores of musicians and singers you may never have heard of and will google because they’re characters whose life stories are as compelling as the music they make.
When the April 24 program is titled “Music-Circus”, I’m thinking what the heck does circus have to do with music. Circuses are visual experiences, music essentially an aural ones.
What follows is an astonishing array of songs loosely related to the Big Top plus interviews with the aerial artist who defies gravity in the most inventively curated show I’ve ever heard…I mean who else could fill two hours with songs related to the circus, one of the most red white and blue pieces of Americana, in such a lovingly cohesive 120 minutes.
The theme is universal. While most of American Routes shows dig into music he connects broadly to Louisiana, this show is a bouquet to America, Americana music, American entertainers and the most recognizable piece of American culture, The Big Top, that has thrilled and chilled children of all ages for 146 years.
How creative? Check out the set list… makes you dizzy with wonder to how Americana ring master Spitzer pulls you in with everything from Ella, The Coasters, Everly Brothers, Al Jolson, Randy Newman, Los Lobos, several acts you’ve never heard of plus a segment of organ grinder music. Geez, everything but the popcorn.
Pairing interviews with New Orleans singer and former circus glass eater Meschiya Lake with high-wire trapeze artist Dolly Jacobs in two separate interviews, Spitzer makes sure you know that the circus isn’t ready to be covered in cobwebs like a piece of furniture in an abandoned Victorian mansion. It’s still a thing. Shot out of a cannon.
Buy a bag of peanuts. Tune in.
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