Well it may be two days late but Teignmouth Jazz and Blues Club (www.teignmouthjazz.org) celebrates its own Mardi Gras in real Louisiana style with Papa Gator and the Levee Breakers, a new band playing at the Bronx Bar, Teignmouth on Thursday 19th March.
Louisiana with its French heritage has always been known for its diversity of culture and when French Canadian exiles known as Cajuns settled in the state in c18th  and mixed with the many cultures already there, then a whole new musical form was created which in modern days is expressed in many forms such as blues, zydeco, swamp rock and soul. Sung in both English and Creole French the music often has the distinctive sound of accordion or fiddle driving its infectious rhythms.
So much for the history lesson, Papa Gator and his gang play the kind of music you might hear howling across the Louisiana bayous on a hot Saturday night, a potent ‘Gumbo’ of Cajun, Zydeco, Blues and Soul designed to make you dance, drink beer and let the good times roll !
The band is a new venture the brainchild of Papa Gator (alias the international blues man Julian Piper) whose band the Levee Breakers is fronted by Rob Rickey who plays Accordion and Keyboards. He hails from Lafayette and as a kid hung out in local Cajun bars main lining the sounds he heard from local heroes Buckwheat Zydeco, Zachary Richard and Beau Soleil. To add to the Louisiana connection, guitarist Julian Piper spent a year in the blues haunts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and has also played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
On Pedal Steel guitar is veteran session man Gus York who can boast playing with a strikingly diverse bunch of artists including Marianne Faithful and Toots and The Maytals.  The whole shebang is topped off by Chris Billings on bass  the American guitar, whose history includes working and recording with UK Sax legend Dick Heckstall Smith, and Lucy Piper on drums, who’s just about to take off for the Mississippi Delta where she’s due to play for a month.
Genuine Cajun music is a rare treat in Devon so if you want a good night out, a bit of a bop as well as a chance to sample The Bronx’s wide range of American Beer and food then get on down if you don’t want the gris gris put on you.