Nick Spitzer celebrates 25 years of "American Routes"
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
New Orleans resident Nick Spitzer has hosted the "American Routes" radio show for 25 years. Photo: Rusty Costanza, used with permission by Tulane University
As a folklorist and radio show host, Nick Spitzer's voice has introduced "American Routes" listeners to the core creators of American music for 25 years, and now his cultural contributions are being nationally recognized.
What's happening: The National Endowment for the Arts granted Spitzer the Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship, and he'll be in Washington, D.C., on Friday for an induction ceremony.
Why it matters: A Tulane University anthropology professor, Spitzer has chronicled a vital part of American history, interviewing more than 1,200 people for "American Routes" alone.
Why radio: "I really enjoy close interviews with people where the microphone just disappears. … On radio, you can just be yourself. You're dealing with the human voice, consciousness to consciousness."
- "I'm just somebody who believes the best way to address some of America's problems today is to reach people with their hearts. … I feel like by presenting people as human beings in their culture, it really helps people maybe put down their swords and arrows a little bit."
"I consider blues the ultimate universal solvent of American life because it was produced mainly by men in the deeply segregated, post-slavery South, and it ends up becoming R&B, rock and roll and infuses into music the entire world over."
How it all started: Growing up in Connecticut, "my world grew out from radio, I'd listen to my favorite baseball teams on the radio, and I could hear the crack of the bat as I went to bed at night."
His biggest influence: His mother.
- "She interviewed everyone she ever met."
How he discovered Louisiana music: Working at his college radio station, "I'd look at a wall of 200,000 records and I could hear music and rituals and festivals from all over the world. Two were misfiled in the Caribbean bin. One was old-time Creole music and one was new urbane soul and zydeco."
- "When I listened to that music, I thought, this can't be in North America, but it was in southwest Louisiana."
His most memorable interview: Jerry Lee Lewis, as a college student, after the Ferriday native performed a raucous show.
- But, "I walk in Monday, and the tape was gone. Somebody had bulk erased it, cut it up and used it for something else."
The interview that got away: "Little Richard, when he was living at the Beverly Hills Hilton."
His favorite celebration restaurant in New Orleans: "I like the old-school elegance of Antoine's."