I promised myself it wouldn’t happen again, but over the weekend I was pulled back in to an age old habit. Perhaps it was the heat, or just that I found myself in a town where temptation was hard to resist but there I was, inexorably drawn again to the very place where all my resistance was at a premium. In actual fact, it was low to empty.
I’d was revisiting an old favourite old haunt, Guildford in Surrey, on one of the warmest weekends of the year where the south downs nearby and the leafy B roads into West Sussex formed a gorgeous backdrop to my weekend wanderings. ‘If I remember correctly,’I told myself, ‘I can turn up this little alley and there will be a preloved record shop which will have a few gems.’ I wasn’t wrong. Nothing had changed and I began leafing through the racked vinyl in search of lost treasures. I wasn’t disappointed either. I only had to be in the shop for a fifteen minutes or so and I’d found as many as I thought my luggage could hold. A fine haul including a present for my vinyl brother in arms, producer Richard Murdoch. I guessed correctly he didn’t gave a copy to KT Oslin‘s 80’s Ladies and I guessed right.
For myself I found two great Jimmie Rodgers album – one which I hope to share on this week’s show, Charlie Rich’s Boss Man and a copy of Lyle Lovett’s Pontiac, which to my shame, has not been part of my collection (until now).
But let me draw you attention to a few other classic recordings we’ll be sharing on the AC this week. Listen up for the work of Marijohn Wilkin who was born 105 years ago this week. She had a remarkable career which brought her success in Music City as a songwriter – which as a woman in the fifties was very unusual. We’ll celebrate her songwriting and play you one of the biggest songs of country music which she wrote in the 1970’s.
Elswhere listen out too for fabulous new songs from Chris Stapleton and Miranda Lambert, Mavis Staples singing Frank Ocean, Ian Noe covering Springsteen and something beautiful from the new 7 CD Springsteen set. We do all this in two hours and it all starts at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland. Oh…and will there be any Jimmie Rodgers on this week’s show I hear you ask? Oh yes.
Join me if you can.