Willie Nelson strolls past me in an Austin airport and seems to bless the program with a flood of heavenly Texas tunes. This Roadshow celebration of song centers on the work of the next generation of Austin songwriters: Kevin Russell, a.k.a. "Shinyribs."

A trip to Urbino, Italy is an American's musical homecoming

Getting hopelessly lost in the wilds of North Carolina leads to encounters with three eccentric mountain men.

Three different Iowa towns offer three different portraits of eccentricity: A James Kirk groupie, the worst stage act in Midwestern history, and a farmer's quirky sex life.

A black man, growing up tough on the rough streets of San Francisco, becomes a local media celebrity, then abruptly escapes to a tiny all-white farming community in South Dakota. ...There's a story here.

The air between the World Trade Center towers was this wonderful madman's playground. It was all illegal, of course. But this genius of creativity was not to be stopped.

An old commercial fisherman invites me onto his porch, on the shores of the Mississippi, in Northern Illinois. There, he pours the wine, and talks of his calling.

A family tree of tragedy.

Making friends in Fayetteville: Three women and two men invite me into a hidden little home, in an alley behind Maxine's Tap Room, for a night of Arkansas storytelling.

Diverse musicians who find the irresistible call of home deep in the bible belt, and their very identity reflected in the rivers of their town.