This week on American Routes, we talk to Barbara Sims about her time working at Sun Studios as a publicist and promoter, and the search for the next Elvis. Then we dig into the archives for classic interviews with Sun’s founder Sam Phillips, Elvis’ sidemen DJ Fontana and Scotty Moore and the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis. Then we head to North Alabama for a conversation on love, God, and music with soul and disco siren Candi Staton.

While they don’t all have blue eyes, the white soul and swamp pop guys and gals from Philadelphia and South Louisiana have created distinctive regional sounds of national significance. In Philadelphia, we sample soul roots of the famed band Hall & Oates; and learn from John Oates that — despite years of pop music, big hair and synthesizers — at heart he is also a folkie into country blues and flat-picked guitar a la Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt… which he plays live for us! The angelic-voiced Daryl Hall, on the other hand, is more a disciple of the Temptations, who we’ll hear along with the Orlons, The O’Jays, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In South Louisiana, the simmering pot of music that draws on Cajun, R&B, soul, and country ends up as a tasty dish called Swamp Pop. Johnnie Allan (Guillot) is a Cajun Swamp Pop chef extraordinaire with hits like “South to Louisiana” and a version of the “Promised Land” played on the French accordion. He’s surrounded by music from Earl King, Cookie & the Cupcakes, and Slim Harpo. Tasty indeed!

For our annual pre-Lenten bacchanal, we bring you classic Mardi Gras songs from the Crescent City and beyond. We start out at home, where New Orleans’ own Monk Boudreaux walks us through the sites and sounds of Mardi Gras Day. We travel to Nice, France – grand city on the Cote d’Azure – and the vintners village of Limoux , where free glasses of blanchette are never empty. We continue our journey in Coney Island NY , where we hear of carnivalesque revelry at America’s great amusement park by the sea and walk with the fishes in the Mermaid Parade.