American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music, including blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical.
The songs and stories on American Routes describe both the community origins of our music, musicians and cultures — the “roots”— and the many directions they take over time — the “routes.”
About Nick Spitzer
Nick Spitzer
Nick Spitzer, the producer and host of American Routes, is a folklorist and a professor of American studies and communication at Tulane University.
Nick specializes in American music and the cultures of the Gulf South, and received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas in 1986 with his dissertation on zydeco music and Afro-French Louisiana culture and identities.
Nick has been a cultural commentator and producer for NPR’s All Things Considered and Fresh Air, CBS‘ Sunday Morning, and ABC’s Nightline. Spitzer directed the film Zydeco: Creole Music and Culture in Rural Louisiana, and has produced or annotated two dozen documentary sound recordings.
Listen to American Routes Sundays at 7am on KXT 91.7.
