American Roots hops smoothly from Alison Krauss to Mudcrutch to Glen Campbell. Weirdly, Toronto is the place to go for a cool Americana livestream. Mexican and border musicĭolly Parton performs at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Big MPB (música popular brasileira) and Tropicália names like Jorge Ben and Maria Bethânia are there, but so are lesser-known virtuosos such as Raphael Rabello and the very cool Afro-Bahian sound of Tribo Nação Ijexá. The effervescent website The Matrix mixes up music and world culture and all kinds of psycho-geographical ruminations, but click on the “Bahia, Brazil” tag and you gain access to some great playlists. The city of Salvador in the north-eastern state of Bahia is a melting pot of Afro-Brazilian cultures and musics. Bossa Nova Brazil mixes the mellow João Gilberto/Sérgio Mendes sort of tunes with livelier bossa beats by legends such as Wilson Simonal, sultry-voiced Nara Leão and jazz-inflected singer and guitarist Zé Renato. Many are dedicated to worrying over having Jair Bolsonaro as the boss, but music has always been a cornerstone of Brazilian culture. This continent-sized country has around 15,000 radio stations, counting licensed and pirate channels. The Matrix radio station in Salvador da Bahia.
