So my good pal Mick said to me a few weeks/months ago, “ Any chance of sending me that recording of In The Pines we did a few years back?” Sure…I lied.
The thing is, if it’s not on my laptop somewhere it could be anywhere. The first digital search was illuminating. I remembered where we’d stolen the version we cut all these years back. It was Gene Clark (who I’d discovered fairly late on) who recorded the song on his, then latest, album “Two Sides To Every Story.” There was no sign of either my version or gene’s there. So I started to look around for the song. I remember that the Loretta Lynn
biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” had a moment when Cissy Spacek went wandering out to the back yard and sang the song quietly to herself. So based on that I realised this song had been a big part of the country/blues catalogue. It didn’t take long to find Leadbelly, Dolly Parton, Bill Munroe, Doc Watson and many other versions. Frustrated by not finding the digital Gene Clark version I finally found a version which made the song sing as plaintively and lonely as I’d remembered it all these years ago. The version – The Louvin Brothers – truly beautiful. You can hear it on Tuesday night.
We’re also celebrating The Beatles. You can buy the entire catalogue (re mastered in glorious mono!) again…again. If you’ve been as dismayed by the poor CD quality of the existing catalogue as I have then this will come as great news to you…start that Santa list now. The impact of The Beatles was so huge in the USA that there have been many great covers and collaborations. We’ve picked some great Beatles songs covered by Country/Americana artists. You’ll no doubt add some suggestions of your own but look out for Steve Earle, Alison Krauss, Rosanne and….yes, Johnny Cash. Just to show that we have some credibility in all this I can now reveal that Richard Murdoch, my producer, has some previous on this issue.
Lastly but certainly most importantly we have three songs by the highly talented Andrew Bird which he recorded for us when he was here in Scotland recently. I will have a chat with Andrew on the show and we’ll try to get to the bottom of his love of the whistling his way through an instrumental…….has Brian B done a show on whistling yet……..all on Tuesday at 8. Don’t forget you can listen to the show on Sunday nights too when the repeat goes on air at 10.