Music

What is the American dream?

A white picket fence and a walk-in closet? Mobility? The promise that your kids will walk an easier road than you did? Bank deposit insurance? Equality under the law? Showing up to your 25th high school reunion with a full head of hair and a fancy title? A Murcielago and a boob job?

And what in the world does that sound like? John Cougar Mellencamp? Lynyrd Sknyryd? Bruce Springsteen? Duke Ellington? KRS-One? Elton John? Jay-Z?

This week, World Cafe invites listeners to discover the music of New Orleans with the series Sense of Place.

Singer-songwriter Sylvie Lewis makes her third appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown. Lewis is English by birth, but has made her home in Switzerland, Los Angeles, Boston and, lately, Rome. Her wanderlust imparts a worldly sophistication to her lyrics and voice, which call to mind sounds from another era.

Kimbra is only 22, but she already has everything it takes to become a huge success. The New Zealand singer is charming, beautiful, has a fantastic voice and steals the show whenever she's performing, including alongside Gotye in his ubiquitous hit "Somebody That I Used to Know." Her solo debut, Vows, is audacious and powerful, and she even treated us to a brand-new song — the super-funky "Come Into My Head" — when she visited our studios.

When he was around 13, Robert Charles Guidry began singing with a band around his hometown of Abbeville, La., deep in the Cajun swamps. The group played Cajun and country music and, after he passed through town and played a show, Fats Domino's music. It was a life-changing experience for the young man, and he found himself with a new ambition: to write a song for Fats.