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.