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HOW MANY ROADS: BOB DYLAN'S BACK PAGES VOLUME II

In this second edition of “How Many Roads?” Bob Dylan’s Back Pages, we’ll rejoin the great American wordsmith by listening to his work from the last 25 years. We won’t forget the historic and ancient roots of his modern sounds, from the Old Testament to the Civil Rights movement. We’ll hear from collaborators and friends, Mavis Staples and Joan Baez, and from Kris Kristofferson who overheard Dylan’s recording sessions while working as a custodian in Nashville. We’ll go to our archives for the late producer Jerry Wexler on Dylan’s spiritual transformation and hear songs that address outlaws and lovers, memories and mortality.

SUN, SURF AND SOUL: SEA BREEZE BEACH AND SAN DIEGO SURFERS

It’s summertime, and the living is easy on American Routes, where we’ve got cool tunes from Miles Davis, Ray Charles, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Beach Boys to help you beat that summer heat. We’ll hear memories of Sea Breeze, NC, a historically Black resort community that was an early site of integration in the Jim Crow South… And visit with some surfers at Mission Beach, San Diego.

ROCKIN' BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN: TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE

During the Cold War, the U.S. State Department started sending jazz musicians overseas with the tactical aim of using their hot licks to thaw relations with Eastern Bloc countries. Jazz great Dave Brubeck recalls how Louis Armstrong, a.k.a. “Ambassador Satch,” won international hearts and minds with his trumpet. Band member Arvell Shaw saw Armstrong literally disarm Russian guards in East Berlin. Meanwhile, fear of nuclear war with the Soviets infiltrated American popular consciousness resulting in gospel, bluegrass and pop odes to and protests against atomic weapons. In the Sixties, the airwaves were dominated by rock’n‘roll, which pirate radio stations and the Armed Forces Network piped across the Iron Curtain. AFN soldier/deejay Rik De Lisle tells about spinning tunes that helped destabilize the Berlin Wall, and Hungarian diplomat/rock guitarist Andras Simonyi and Russian musician Stas Namin talk about life in the Soviet sphere and the cultural revolution sparked by the Beatles, Traffic and Jimi Hendrix.

THE FOLK REVIVAL REVISITED: PETE SEEGER, JUDY COLLINS, JIM KWESKIN, JERRY GARCIA, ALAN LOMAX, RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT, JOAN BAEZ, BONNIE RAITT AND MORE

The American folk music revival that grew from the Post-WWII era to the Sixties was about more than just music: it wrapped in political activism, romantic visions of the self and the “folk,” group “sing-a-longs,” “hootenannies” and careers of singer-songwriters. We interview folk heroine Judy Collins about her move from traditional British folk songs to the new songs and sounds in Greenwich Village. Jug bandleader Jim Kweskin talks about his love of communal living. The late Pete Seeger and Alan Lomax offer opinions on their divergent views of folk music and the quest for authenticity. Jerry Garcia tells of his most influential folk music source and we’ll hear Dylan go electric at Newport in 1965. Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops talks about bringing back the peoples’ music of another era today.