A Little Mercy

On Sunday we managed to get back to our regular church. It’s not our local place but it’s a place where we feel very welcome and at home. When you’ve been away from a while and (apart from a lunchtime Mass at a cathedral when we were travelling and a friend’s christening) we’d not been able to be in church for a couple of months. I realise this probably makes me an outsider as most people are happy to let Sundays slip by without giving church going a second thought. What was so great about Sunday was the affirmation by our local priest of the sense that we are part of a community of humanity and not fearful of every outsider that crosses our paths. Glasgow, like so many British cities, has experienced the presence of sinister far right activists determined to spread fear and distrust among newer residents. It’s very sad that this has been allowed to happen in a city which, in my lifetime, has always erred on the side of welcome.

A few years ago I was hosting a songwriting session with two black friends from London. I was a little nervous that they might not find Glasgow as accepting and multi cultural as I imagined it to be. To my relief they told me that, to my delight, they had never felt so welcome. I hold on to that experience though I fear so much has changed in the intervening fifteen years or so.
On Sunday our priest told us that he was a part of a group of religious leaders of all faiths who had been asked to speak out on the recent flag-waving and far right activism that has blighted our neighbourhoods. As a parishioner and a citizen who loves the city, I’m glad that the primary witness of the churches is to show compassion. As my old friend Mary Gauthier put it so well….We could all use a little mercy now.

The Duo

This coming Sunday you’ll hear my selection of songs for BBC Radio 2’s Sounds of The 70’s. It was a joy to pick songs from the decade which formed so much of my own musical direction. The 70’s was the first time I encountered country rock and that led eventually to my love of country music. On Sunday you’ll hear Emmylou Harris covering Kitty Wells and it was Emmylou who led me back to Gram Parsons and from there the road just carried on.
On this week’s AC we’ll play some great country duets which carry on that great tradition into which Gram and Emmylou fell so gracefully. Before them there had been The Louvins, Johnny & Jack, George & Tammy, Dolly & and so many more. This Tuesday you’ll hear The Bros Osborne, Thelma & James, Ferris & Sylvester, Buddy Miller & Dan Penn and Kimmie Rhodes with Willie Nelson. You’ll also hear our second hour special guest dueting with Jenni Muldaur paying tribute to their favourite country singers. Talking of Teddy…..

Ladies and Gentlemen, Teddy Thompson

As we were 2011

We are so delighted to welcome Teddy Thompson back to the AC. Teddy has been a guest a good many times on the show and we’ve loved his deep love of country music over many albums. Teddy’s latest record was the focus of his most recent visit to Scotland where he has deep roots. His maternal and paternal gradparents were both Scottish and on his mother, Linda’s side the famous Scottish actor Brian Pettifor is a well know Glasgow resident. In case you didn’t already know I’ll be reminding listeners how great Richard and Linda Thompson (Teddy’s amazing parents) were in their heyday on Sunday on Sounds of the 70’s. On the day after Teddy’s excellent St Luke’s show a few weeks ago he came into the AC for a long conversation about his new album, Never Be The Same, those country duets and how he managed tobe brought up by British Folk legends and end up living in America and loving country music. Teddy is such a talented artist whose take on music is so worthwhile. Spending an hour in his company is the best hour I can recommend for this coming week. Join us this Tuesday from 8 on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland.

Here we are now….

The Riff

There is something great about a killer riff. I often wonder how central the riff is to a country hit and often speculated when it came into the arrangement. There was a great story told by Jerry Kennedy arriving into a studio to play guitar on what turned out to be one of the biggest songs of all time, Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man. The producer, the great Billy Sherrill suggested to Jerry that he could perhaps play something on the first few bars of the song before the vocal came in. Jerry panicked. His guitar was not long out of the hold from a flight he took from Chicago. His guitar was cold and out of tune. Starting to try to get it back into shape he happened to play a simple lick. ‘That’s the one,’ Billy told him and the rest is one of the most famous riffs in country music. On this week’s show you are going to hear some wonderful riffs leading into some of the best songs we’ve played so far on the AC this year.

Americana

When I first heard the term Americana I was so happy. I saw it in a record shop not far from where I live. (a shop, sadly, no longer there) It felt like a great term for so much of the music I loved. I wasn’t so sure about mainstream country and I really didn’t think rock or folk did justice to so many of the artist I admired, and it seemed my own instinct about music was essentially moving in an Americana direction too. It sometimes seems the term has become meaningless as it covers everythng from Buddy Miller (country) through JD McPherson (rock n roll) Laura Marling (folk) to The War and Treaty (RnB) …and more.
So it’s good to note that in this celebration of the music from the first few months of 2026 we have some great Americana (worthy of the term) to celebrate. Listen out for tracks by Noeline Hoffman, Hayes Carll and Mon Rovia all featuring in this week’s two hour celebration. If that’s not enough we will remind you how great Teddy Thompson is too.

We Still Love Country Music

There will be so much great country music on this week’s show too. It’s high season for country music as it becomes one of the most popular genre’s in the UK. When you hear that Morgan Wallen is record of the week on BBC Radio 2 you can be sure that something significant is going on. We’ll leave Morgan to the other station however and bring you Ella Langley (pic above), Megan Moroney, Luke Combs, Kacey Musgraves and the ever green Vince Gill. You already know there will be so much more don’t you? If you want to hear all our choices tune in to Another Country this coming Tuesday from five past eight on BBC Sounds or BBC radio Scotland.

The first time I met Luke Combs I firmly believe neither of us was overjoyed about the experience. He was in a dressing room at Glasgow’s Hydro before his first ever appearance at C2C. He and his tour manager looked exactly what you’d imagine two jet lagged people might look like if they’d been asked to get up at an unearthly hour and fly from a place they’d never visited to another city they’d probably never heard of. It wasn’t a good start.

We made the best of things but, as I vaguely recall, the interview wasn’t aided by my either his or my lack of enthusiasm. To be fair, Luke was one of so many names we really didn’t know much about on that first visit and looking back now I realise my questions were as uninspiring as that breezeblock dressing room. My final ask was to ascertain whether he might be returning to Scotland any time soon.

Nine years later Luke Combs is answering that question in the most emphatic manner. He’s returning to make the point that in 2026 he is the most significant country artist on the world stage. Just look at those tour dates. Sweden, France, Netherlands, Ireland, England and Scotland in sold out stadiums. Three nights at Wembley, two at Murrayfield and then we need to talk about record sales and streams.

Luke Combs has sold an estimated 168 Million total equivalent units. This surpasses artist Garth Brooks as the highest-certified country artist in music history. His albums don’t get gold discs they receive multi platinum status and don’t even start on his radio profile. But what makes most of this so remarkable is that the hung-over singer songwriter I met in that dressing room back in 2017 has achieved all of this in theses last nine years. Ten year town? Not in Luke’s case.

So, what is it that Luke does that propels this success. It’s not the jokey bravado of a Brad Paisley or the bon homie of a Garth or even the pop electronic crossover appeal of a Shania, it’s somehow about a voice and songs. Like his friend and fellow Caroline native, Eric Church, Luke has a distinctive voice and some great stories to tell. That, in the great tradition that is country music, has thankfully been enough for his music to be loved across the world. To see him in an acoustic radio performance is very little different to seeing him in an arena. His energy and honesty is a compulsive draw and next weekend 140,000 Scots fans are going to witness this for themselves.

On this week’s AC we will bring you two hours of Luke Combs originals, covers, collaborations as well as artists connected to the tour. On the show too we will play out a much better interview I recorded with Luke in 2022 where we talk about his influences and how those songs first emerged. If you have not yet succumbed to the Gospel of Luke I suggest you might well be believers come 10 pm this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can from five past eight on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland.

When I was a very young teenager I went on holiday with my parents alone for the first time minus my older sister. My father’s ideal holiday destination was an English seaside town. We seemed to do most of them; Southport, Lytham- St Anne’s, Bournemouth and his own favourite spot, Scarborough – to where I am travelling now on a rather bumpy tour bus.

On this particular year it was Bournemouth and, for the first time, my older sister, my regular holiday companion had gone elsewhere with friends to, a no doubt, more exotic location. I was to be on my own in a strange hotel. The first mistake I made was to buy a book of ghost stories to while away the hours my Dad wanted to spend listening to a local brass ensemble’s performance at the nearby band stand. The ghost stories became a perfect accompaniment/distraction until I got back to that lonely hotel room where everything I’d been reading seemed to come alive in the semi dark of an endless night of terror. I moved on to Agatha Christie for the remainder of the holiday.

There was one comforting piece of holiday luggage which helped console any further nightmares. We had taken with us a small transistor radio which I had in my room and to my delight I realised that everything with which I was familiar at home was still there on my holiday radio. How reassuring were those voices of familiar Radio One DJ’s and the night time reassuring crackle of Radio Luxembourg. 

I thought about all of this as I tuned into watch some of The Wimbledon coverage and remembered hearing a classic final played out, ball by ball, on the car radio on one of these long summer journeys.  The commentary would come and go as the old long wave signal disappeared in and out of range. The radio, in so many ways always saved the day as Nanci Griffith knew so well. If you can’t find a friend you’ve still got the radio. How right she was.

On The Radio This Week

This week we’ll keep celebrating summer country songs as summer seems to have finally landed in Scotland. Following on from last week’s repeat of our 2025 Emmylou Harris special (check it out on BBC Sounds) we’ll also have Tenille Townes, Ashley Monroe and First Aid Kit singing about Emmylou. You can hear some fabulous new songs from Tift Merrit, Luke Combs and Phoebe Bridgers too as well as some classic country songs.

Finally

I need to draw attention to the new Scottish artists coming through. We’ll play Frankie Morrow and Curiosity Shop this week – both artists to get excited about and soon we’ll have new music from Sarah Irvine. Scotland has an exciting musical landscape and despite what some people are saying BBC Radio Scotland is the only radio station celebrating its musical diversity. All of this will become clear on this week’s Another Country on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland this coming Tuesday evening from five past eight. Do join me if you can.

July Saturday Nights

‘Funny how a melody sounds like a memory…’ Oh it is Eric, it really is. I have found myself engaging fully with Eric Church’s classic ‘Springsteen‘ a little over the last week as though of you who have seen us may have found out. (17,000 over the last three shows, thank you) When Eric Church first released that song some fifteen years ago I was the last one to really get it. I think I resisted as I (think) I suspected it was trying to carpetbag on the name. I was wrong and I regret not embracing it. I quickly got over it and went out to buy Chief and became a paid up member of ‘The Church Choir.’

Springsteen is a definitive summer country song but it’s not Eric’s only seasonal classic. On this week’s AC we will play another song of EC’s which seeps summer and it will be one of many songs sprinkled throughout the show celebrating the end of school and the start of the holidays. Last week we fought off the heat in England as we travelled through and although Scotland seems to be experiencing its usual mixed summer weather Deacon Blue will be back in the south and in Wales this week and I hope to see some of you there.

Optimism

I spent Monday of this week alongside my musical family at Glasgow University’s graduation ceremony where we were honoured to be the first collective recipient of an honorary doctorate in the 575 of the University’s existence. We were as surprised as we were grateful. It was fascinating spending an afternoon among a few hundred graduands all about to begin their new lives. What came over was a sense of optimism that despite the recent uncertainties in the employment market the people I spoke to were excited to make their mark on the world. It is that sense of optimism, courage and devil may care I used to see when co writing with with artists who were starting out. I often reflect on those who have had success since I first met them over guitar and notebooks in makeshift writing rooms. Perhaps they always knew what they wanted to do and because of that were more certain of how to get there. It was always exciting to be in their presence and yesterday’s room full of of aspiring world changers was equally exciting.

Landon

On the subject of exuberant youth you will hear Landon Smith on this week’s AC. I encourage you to listen to him but also check out the video. It’s as low budget as it gets but it captures the energy and ambition of his music perfectly. I think we will be playing and loving Landon a lot over the next while. On this week’s show you will also hear wonderful new songs by Bella White, Little Big Town and Bayker Blankenship (a recent Glasgow visitor during C2C), a beautiful new track from Margaret Glaspy as well as brand new artist Minna. There’s so much to enjoy we really can’t fit it all in…

Summer Songs

There is something about a summer song. Perhaps it’s the memory of a particular holiday or a journey in a car or the association with a record with the place where you came of age; in any circumstance the summer and song is a potent blend.
For those of you who may encounter me in my day job over the next few weeks you will probably understand that I have my own favourites and there is a Springsteen connection…but like this week’s special guest, it’s not a song by the more famous owner of that name.

I do recall certain songs of joy as well as songs that are forever blighted by my association with their radio presence coinciding with miserable holidays at summer camps. (well one certainly). In recent years we’ve been transfixed by Chris Stapleton and Miranda Lambert’s A Song To Sing. This year Miranda has surpassed that with Crisco and, it’s only June , and we have decided it’s our song of the summer. Of course there are so many and I’d love to hear your country faves, but off the top of my head I think of The Gambler, Strawberry Wine and Pontoon and I can smell the factor 30. Do let me know your own suggestions and perhas we can disappear down a summer country rabbit hole later into the season.

Sing Children Sing

One of the joys of young parenthood for me – and increasingly grandparenthood – was listening to my wife sing to our children. It was a family tradition from her own childhood which she passed on. Sometimes they would join in and at other times they would request their own favourites and often I’d simply enjoy the collective performance. In last week’s Observer there was an interesting focus on children, reading and music. Children’s laureate, the great Frank Cottrell Boyce was sharing his own thoughts on encouraging the former and Laura Marling was explaining howimportant the latter had become to her as a young mother. As if to prove the point Laura has recorded an album of the great children’s songs written by Raffi. It set me recalling some other roots children’s songs by some of our favourite AC acts. You’ll enjoy where this one goes if you tune in.

Another Springsteen

It’s no small deal putting the name Springsteen on your marquee I’d imagine. Alana Springsteen however has managed to establish her own identity despite sharing that famous name. She was a guest at our backstage ‘studio’ at this year’s C2C and we recorded a longer conversation than we have managed to broadcast so far. On this week’s show you can hear that longer conversation and discover more about the woman who gave us ‘You Don’t Deserve A Country Song.’ All this in two hours of radio? Yes! Tune in on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds and join me if you can this Tuesday evening.

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you.….

So starts Fountain of Sorrow, the centre piece of Jackson Browne’s seminal third album Late For The Sky. The lyric came into my head the other day as I stumbled across a photograph taken some fifteen years ago of Kris Kristofferson and me back stage before his gig at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.

Kris was making one of a series of visits to Scotland playing solo; just a guitar, his voice and a collection of some of the best songs ever written. The idea had been put to him a few years previously when he’d been staying here for an extended visit while filming. Why not, someone asked, play a gig or two? Around that time someone (maybe that same person) let Kris hear an album by a new artist called Roddy Hart. Kris liked the record so much he offered to sing on it and asked Roddy to open for the shows. A true friendship was born and it was my good friend Roddy who made the connection for my producer Richard and myself to meet the man and record an interview on the day the photograph was taken.

On that occasion we talked about so many things and particularly these songs which have become country standards and have also become loved throughout the world. The years after were difficult for Kris who was already showing the early signs of the dementia which afflicted him until his death two years ago. He was on great form that day and in celebration of ninety years since his birth we’ll play out a little of that conversation as well as some Kristofferson classics on this week’s show.

Hey, Ho

With The Lumineers coming to town soon in a big event at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park I found myself wondering if they’d started the whole crowd answer thing. It appears on a track we’ve loved recently too. So we thought we’d disappear down a little avenue of Heys, Hoahs and the general call and respnse thing. It’s a good trail and country music has embraced it whole heartedly.

Who Might I Fall In Love With?

We’ll have much for you to discover on this week’s show too. Listen out for Jay Buchanan and the return of Alela Diane, Amanda Shires and a wonderful new song from Lambchop. It’s been a while but these artists remind you why you may well have fallen in love first time round. It’s Another Country and it’s live this Tuesday evening from eight on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

Chip Taylor

There comes a time every year when the long winter and, let’s be honest, overlong spring turns into the first glimpses of summer. The clue is always the need to bring more of the outside into the house and to begin spending more time out of doors than enclosed in the warmth of the house. This year it all sneaked up on me quite quickly having spent the last five weeks locked into darkened rooms of rehearsal or performance and only really twigging the summer was coming as I blinked out from the stage door of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum around 10 p.m and realised that it was not yet dark. More often that not I spent the next hour heading back west into glorious sunsets as I drove towards Glasgow. These journeys gave me plenty chances to listen and think and as ever music would suggest itself to me. As the warm days became mild evenings and nights the open windows we normally sleep beside became, no longer, an interesting lifestyle choice but a necessity. When this time comes I always return to Chip Taylor and a beautiful record he made called The Little Prayers Trilogy from 2014.

There’s no way in the world I’ve been able to keep up with all of Chip’s glorious output but there is a mine of wonderful, slow, evocative material that will be listened to by me as I find more time over the next few months. This is, not least, because Chip died in March this year and I feel I’ve not really paid him enough respect by listening or playing his songs on the radio. So this week we shall disappear down a short Chip rabbit hole as we remember the song we always come round to from that album, Sleep With Open Windows featuring Lucinda Williams.

The Close Season

The football season should be over. The last game I managed to attend was by Cowdenbeath on their last day of the season as they put three past Hearts B team. There was a happy if resigned atmosphere that day at Central Park as word filtered through that their old rivals Dunfermline had reached the Scottish Cup Final.
On our last but one show at The Lyceum, while the script and songs sent sarcastic chants towards Dunfermline, the Pars themselves were locked in a losing battle to Celtic at Hampden. How much this was of any comfort to the many folk from Cowdenbeath who came to see the show is anyone’s guess. What was certainly true is that football, like so many other pastimes and leisure activities acts as a handy metaphor for so much of life. No true supporter can ever fully celebrate a win without knowing many other days of utter misery and failure. Scotland in the World Cup notwithstanding, I kinda wish we’d all take a break from it so we can stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood for another long season. I’m glad to say (as a football fan) the AC is football free zone.

On The AC This Week

As well as Chip and Lucinda we’ll have a new discovery in the shape of Hudson Westbrook, new tracks from Ashley Cooke, Kameron Marlowe (two C2C stand outs) and the ever brilliant, Little Big Town. There will some familiar offerings from Kevin Welch, George Jones and the eighty five year old Bob Dylan who shows no sign of slowing down. Is all in two hours of country and American this coming Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland.

A Good Show

As I’m still in my theatrical adventures I have found myself thinking a lot about how and why I love theatre so much and also what my first formative theatrical experiences were. There were a few false starts: I suffered terror as a child at pantomime stars breaking the fourth wall and coming far too close to the audience and suffered a depressing night or two at the local amateur Operatic Society out of duty to one of the stars who seemed to be a friend of the family.

There have been many steps along the way but recently I recalled a conversation with my old friend Jim Taylor who was, for many years, the life force behind Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre which was attached to the college I attended. Jim was still there many years later when it opened as a stand alone venue. We worked on shows together back in the day and I’d enquire how particular visiting productions would be coming along. These shows could be Scottish Opera or Ballet through to local AmDram spectaculars.

Sometimes I’d wonder whether they would be to Jim’s taste. ‘Oh, it’s a good show,’ Jim would inform me. I liked that. It meant that the production’s achievement matched its ambition. That focus is still something which should be a maxim for any piece of performance; strive to make it a good show.

Disappearing Acts

If the pantomime and the Gondoliers made me want to bypass Thespia then the visiting players to our primary school had the opposite effect. Every year or so (it seemed) a group of travelling actors would set up on the stage of our school hall and perform a child friendly show for the school. The show was hugely entertaining, of course, but above and beyond that there was something fascinating about watching the company arrive, set up then disappear again at the end of the day. The idea that people got to do this exciting adventure for a living intrigued and fed my own imagination. At 68 years of age it still excites me that I don’t have a real job and get to appear and disappear on a regular basis.

Molly Tuttle

A few years ago our Nashville correpondent, Bill DeMaim recommended Molly Tuttle’s music to us. Bill, as I recall, had happened upon her while doing a little guitar research and in trying to find out how best to play acoustic with a flat pick stumbled across the online world of Molly. Her playing, without exaggeration, is prodigious. She started young and her musical stylings and repertoire continues to expand. As evidence of this her recent Grammy nominations for Americana album of the year are a follow on to her win in the Bluegrass category the year before. She’s also still very young. On this record the artwork on the sleeve tells the story of how alopecia has affected her since the early part of her life, which you will hear her talk about in a remarkably honest interview I recorded with her on her recent visit to Scotland. This conversation and songs from her current album So Long Little Miss Sunshine and earlier releases all form the second hour of this week’s Another Country. You can hear the whole show from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland or on BBC Sounds this Tuesday evening. Do join me if you can.

Black Diamonds

As some of you may know I am currently appearing at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre in a production of Black Diamonds and The Blue Brazil. Don’t worry…I’m not acting. I am singing songs I wrote to go along with Gary McNair’s script which is based around Ron Ferguson’s book. The acting is performed brilliantly by Dawn Steele and Barrie Hunter. As I write this we are previewing the show before it officially opens on May 13th. On that night we will welcome Ron Ferguson himself along with extended family members and it will be a joy to see him again. As a small bonus Ron came to Saturday’s preview along with his wife, Christine and daughter, Fiona.

I was able to tell Ron how much his book meant to me and how, in an age of millionaire footballers and billionaire football owners the book is a timely antidote to everything that is wrong with the modern game. The book and the play tell the story of a football team which sits at the heart of a mining community and reflects the hopes and dreams of the town as much as it does its own sporting ambition.  The Black Diamonds refer to the coal – Cowdenbeath became the ‘Chicago of Fife’ back in the late 1900s – and the Blue Brazil – that nick name for the football team is a little more whimsical. But like all good sobriquets it carries with it a certain amount of hyperbole based on aspiration. Safe to say there is laughter and tears but essentially it seems people are enjoying what the late John McGrath correctly identified as a ‘good night out.’ If you are free to come I hope you enjoy the evening.

Jimmy’s Juke Box

The sound designer for the show, the good Pippa Murphy, suggested I make a pre show and interval playlist. This, of course, is essentially a gift. I decided the best way to introduce the show would be to imagine the music played in the main setting for the play – Jimmy’s Bar in Cowdenbeath. So Jimmy’s jukebox which I hope may have been there in 1992 – the setting for the drama – contains some classic 45’s that (I have allowed myself to imagine) have been customer favourites over the decades. And, yes, there are country classics.

Paul Simon

I need to tell you that I finally saw the great Paul Simon last Sunday. After all these years and listening to his wonderful songs over the decades it was a real joy to be in the same room hearing his now fragile voice delivering some of his most beautiful songs. We shall have a great country Paul Simon cover on this week’s AC.

Julia Cole

On this week’s show you will get a chance to hear more about another of this year’s C2C artists, Julia Cole. There’s always been a strong comedic thread running through Country Music and Julia has tapped into that great tradition. There is no better example than her song, What Could Possibly Go Wrong.  We met up at our backstage makeshift studio at the Hydro to talk about this and Julia’s own brand of ‘sisterhood country.’ You can hear this as well as lots of lovely new records by Ashley McBryde, Tenille Townes, Hiss Golden Messenger and Charley Crockett – there’s quite a Charley story to share with you too.) If that’s not enough we’ll also take you on a little Gregory Alan Isakov trail which involves some beautiful collaborations. This all starts at five past eight this coming Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and , if you happen to be coming to a theatre that night, you can hear it all any time you choose on BBC Sounds.