American Routes ®

We visit with Willie Nelson about his early gigs in Texas polka music, his days as a teenage radio host for the early-morning farm report, and the fact that he is so used to touring that he sleeps on his tour bus, even when it's in the driveway at his home in Texas.

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For Memorial Day, the first road holiday of the year, we speak with Red Simpson, who despite his not-quite-ready-for-the-Teamsters credentials (the only truck he'd driven was for Good Humor) was recruited by Capitol Records to sing trucking songs in the mid-60s. He went onto record great road songs like "The Highway Patrol" and "I'm a Truck."

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Travel to roadside attractions along America's musical highways, visit the annual Wally Byam Airstream Convention in Boise Idaho, and chat with nouveau rockabillies Southern Culture on the Skids. Plus music from Charles Mingus, Flaco Jimenez, The Breeders and The Dixie Hummingbirds.

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Genre-defying guitarist, fiddler, and vocalist Gatemouth Brown hails from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast and loves country and Cajun music as much as jazz. He offers his tart opinions of life and art between puffs on that pungent pipe of his.

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In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we interview octogenarian Lalo Guerrero---composer of "Cancion Mexicana" and zoot-suit swing and collaborator with groups such as Los Lobos--and young hot Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Perez, who blends avant-garde with the traditional music of his home country.

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