To kick off the summer season, American Routes is riding the airwaves to exotic destinations, swinging and surfing to all manner of beachside rhythms from the Beach Boys, Toots and the Maytals, Wilco, and the Kinks. We also stay home to bask in the sultry heat of “Summertime,” composed by George Gershwin and novelist Dubose Heyward in 1934 for the opera Porgy and Bess. It’s one of the most covered tunes in the American songbook with over thirty thousand renditions. We’ll hear takes from Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, and the Zombies.