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.

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.