This week on Blues Before Sunrise, the highway is calling. The August 16 edition of the five-hour blues broadcast takes a musical trip down the road, with plenty of hard-driving blues, deep catalog discoveries and long-overdue releases along the way. It is a program built around the idea of movement: traveling, leaving town, heading down the road and finding the blues wherever the highway leads.

The central theme arrives during Hours 3 and 4, when every tune features the word “Highway” in its title. That makes for an unusually focused two-hour excursion through the blues repertoire, revealing just how often the highway has served as a metaphor, setting and subject in blues music. From the open road to the troubles encountered along the way, these songs capture the freedom, loneliness, danger and restless energy associated with life on the move.

Hour 2 brings a particularly noteworthy release for collectors and students of the blues. After years of waiting, Kokomo Mojo has finally issued an entire CD devoted to the sides of Piney Brown, the recording name of Columbus Perry. Brown’s work has long deserved this kind of concentrated attention, and this release provides an opportunity to hear a substantial collection of his music in one place. Blues Before Sunrise takes advantage of the occasion to spotlight these recordings and bring Brown’s music to a wider audience.

The journey continues into Hour 5, following the Soul Breakfast, with music drawn from the three-CD set originally issued on J.R. Fullbright’s Elko label. This collection opens another door into the rich and sometimes overlooked history of regional blues and R&B recording. The lineup is packed with familiar names and worthy discoveries, including J.D. Nicholson, Jimmy T-99 Nelson, Ray Agee and George Harmonica Smith, along with many other artists whose recordings deserve another spin.

As always, the program moves beyond the familiar blues canon, digging into recordings that reveal the depth and variety of the music’s history. The Elko material is especially suited to the BBS approach: a mixture of recognizable artists, obscure sides and recordings that reward listeners who are willing to explore beyond the standard playlists.

Taken together, this week’s program offers several different kinds of blues journeys. There is the literal highway running through Hours 3 and 4, the rediscovery of Piney Brown in Hour 2, and the archival trip into the Elko catalog during the final hour. Each segment explores a different corner of blues history while maintaining the broad, adventurous spirit that has always defined Blues Before Sunrise.

So buckle up and hit the highway with BBS. Whether the destination is a familiar favorite, a newly discovered Piney Brown side or an unexpected Elko recording, this week’s program promises five hours of blues that are worth the trip.

Blues Before Sunrise — August 16, 2026. Try not to miss it. Only on BBS!