Anyone here ever listen to that music show on NPR?

The name is American Routes. Never heard it. No NPR up here unfortunately. I do know they lost their studios to Katrina, as did a couple other NPR programs and NPR stations. Industry wide fundraising efforts are being planned to help those NPR stations get back on their feet.

The change of spelling to "route" would be a great disappointment to Australians and changes the context entirely . To me the term American Roots held untold promise - it sounded X rated !!

I refer you to the Australian Slang dictionary (see the hyperlink below):

Root (verb and noun) : synonym for f*ck in nearly all its senses: "I feel rooted"; "this washing machine is rooted"; "(s)he's a good root". A very useful word in fairly polite company.
If you are interested in Australian slang this may be a good starting point. (It isn't all as coarse as this example ) lol

http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html