There were many lovely moments at Oran Mor on Sunday night. It was there and then I finally got to experience Allison Russell and The Rainbow Coalition live and, if you were in that select audience too, you’ll know experience is the right term for the gig. Allison gives everything to her performance and in that giving there’s a real sense of acknowledgment about the contribution of her band members and a recognition that none of this has happened overnight. That last point, however is, interesting.

Allison has a ton of Grammy nominations as well as several gongs to place on her mantle piece, though her career is moving at such speed, I doubt there will be time to pause and appreciate them all. Reflecting on my earlier comment that none of this happened overnight, it’s plain to see how Allison has been working hard at her music for the last twenty years but also recognise that since she set out on her own for the ‘Outside Child’ album in 2021 her rise to national and international recognition has been meteoric. That’s why it was great that 400 of us got to enjoy an intimate performance at a packed out Oran Mor on Sunday and see at close quarters an artist at the top of her game. When she stopped to reflect how her life and career had taken off with the help of Brandi Carlile a couple of years back Allison told her audience, ‘When someone opens the door you gather up your friends and rush through together.’ That she included her friends says everything about Allison Russell. That she is on the other side of that door is also without question. We’ll play a highlight moment on this week’s show.

Similarly I recall seeing Ashley McBryde back in 3rd and Lindsely in Nashville and having the distinct impression we were part of the lucky few who were witnessing a star on the way up. Last week Ashley played two sold out nights at Glasgow Barrowlands and I hear from our AC reporter, Emma, who was there that the gig had some great moments which made for a Glasgow/Ashley love in.

Elsewhere we’ll introduce you to some fine new things including Our Man In The Field, Loving and the fab Wilder Woods whose current single features our new friends The War and Treaty. There will be plenty familiar names too enjoy and as ever you can join us from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM or on BBC Sounds live and after at a time and place of your own choosing. Either way I’d be grateful for your company.

When did it last happen to you? You know, that moment when you’re otherwise preoccupied then something comes into your orbit, a melody, a hook, a voice and before you know it a song has wormed its way into your brain before embedding into your heart. Once there it’s unlikely it can be removed.

That’s not to say some songs invade unintentionally and dam it, I’m not sure why one of the worst offerings by Rod Stewart comes into my head when nothing else is going on. (There’s plenty good ones from Faces era I can substitute fortunately) Let’s stick with the good for a minute though. I can remember places, times and particular moments when a song burst its way into my life. The first time I heard Michael Jackson’s Human Nature on my walkman on a ski run where, so absorbed, I drifted on to a perilous black run instead of the easier blue. Or when my pal Charlie put the needle down on that first Prefab Sprout album one winter afternoon in his west end flat. I still want to thank Johnnie Walker for that lunchtime spin for Misstra Know It All coming out of Newsround…..I even taped it.

Country hooks have become important to me too. Country Radio loves these easily identified two bar riffs at the top of so many hits. That little acoustic guitar figure before Miranda’s The House That Built Me, the distorted guitar effects before Sam Hunt’s Break Up In A Small Town, the pedal steel motif that heralds the joyous first verse of Connie Smith’s Once a Day…I could go on. For a short while I became addicted to hearing that mandolin pattern at the top of Carrie Underwood’s So Small ; even now it brings on a Pavlovian reaction of happiness suggesting I’m somewehere other than a dreich Glasgow Tuesday in January.

Some of this drifted across me as I sat in the City Halls last Saturday evening. As each song progressed I realised that Teddy Thompson too had been hooked by the hooks. Not, however, just by the hooks but also by the stories, the melodies and simple wordplay involved in country music. I enjoyed the fact that he assumed no one else of his generation quite understood his love of country and even wondered aloud if his audience (packed out by the way) shared any of this. They did Teddy, but if they didn’t, they do now. It was a masterclass in playing, singing and performance where every one of Teddy’s fine touring ensemble did what was needed and no more.

You can hear some of Teddy’s current album on this week’s AC as we preview another great country event blowing in to Scotland on Wednesday evening. Ashley McBryde’s tour lands for two special Barrowlands nights this week and we will remind you of how significant a writer and singer she really is by replaying you some of the interactions we’ve enjoyed over the years.

There’s lost more, and as ever, lots of new artists to enjoy. You can hear all of this on BBC Sounds from 8 this Tuesday evening or join us live on BBC Scotland.

Firstly, let me wish you all a very happy new year. It’s been a while and you might well wonder what has kept the blog from appearing over these last seven weeks or so. The main reason is that my day job took me to Australia and New Zealand, and if you are reading this from that part of the world, thank you for your warm welcome and some amazing nights.

Some of you listen to Another Country down there and you had the fortune to hear, at first hand, a couple of the artists I came across on my travels. Bud Rokesky opened for the Deacon Blue tour all across Australia and we enjoyed the sounds of his remarkable country baritone all across the tour. When we got to New Zealand I got to stand in the wings of the Opera House in Wellington hearing the songs of Holly Arrowsmith, who, it turns out, was heavily influenced by an old AC fave, Nadia Reid. You’ll hear both these artists on our first live show of the new year.

This time of year also brings some of the most interesting Americana artists into Scotland for the winter festival of all festivals, Celtic Connections. If you are within driving, bus or rail distance of Glasgow over January there are some great nights to be enjoyed. Teddy Thompson, Sarah Jarosz, Molly Tuttle, Allison Russell, Margo Price and Israel Nash are just some of the AC faves coming into town over the next few weeks. We’ll share some great tracks from all of these acts on this week’s show.

We’ll also have some great new releases and one or two things we never got round to in ’23 share with you and I’m particularly excited to play Jess Williamson whose name keeps popping up these days. She’s going to be a very special artist. We have, of course played and loved Jess before but it was in the context of her collaboration with Plains and Waxahatchee. Her album, Time Ain’t Accidental holds some real trasures. We’ll make a point of digging deeper over the next few months.

Finally, a personal story from my travels. In November I spent a week seeing my grandson who lives across the Bay from San Francisco. I found myself taking the Richmond Bridge over to Marin Country a few times over the week. At one end of that bridge sits St Quentin Prison. As you cross the Bay you can’t but miss the stolid walls and bars of California’s oldest penal institution and imagine some of the people and events which took place there. One night in 1968 Johnny Cash brought his touring band to play to the inmates and packed a mobile studio into the truck. The subsequent live album became one of CBS’s top sellers and it contains some great performances as well as being the occasion on which one of the most famous shots of the Man in Black was taken. I found an anniversary edition of the album on my travels and I’ll play you a highlight on this week’s show.

There’s so much to get into two hours and it all kicks of at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds whenever you like. Join me of you can.

It’s the early evening after the night before and there are so many random thoughts about the last few months that have flitted through my head on-stage , off-stage, mid-song and in the sleepless nights that have come with jumping time zones and keeping odd hours. 

I don’t get time to introduce all the songs in any meaningful way, but if I could sit down with you and explain these are a few of these random thoughts: The line in ‘Queen of The New Year’ about being as ‘innocent as hell’ come from the title of a TV documentary about a Glasgow band in the mid 80s….. I wrote Walk in The Woods as a response to the end of the 2018 tour. On getting home we just wanted to get lost in our favourite park……..  Bethlehem Begins is my attempt to understand Yeats’s ‘Sailing To Byzantium’ – but I’m still no closer. …….I realised in NZ that any attempt to imitate a Hammond B3 is pointless – only the real thing, played by Jim will work……. When I sing the lines ‘Junk food the whole over’s as good as standing round’ in ‘Twist and Shout’ each night I think of Dougie and I going to Paris to look at studios and realising we’d given ourselves no time to eat and had to scoff a Mickey D’s in the capital of cuisine…… Homesick James was a discovery of a blues singer I discovered while rifling through a guy’s record collection on my first ever visit to New York in 1988. Oh I could go on…it’s these random thoughts that come and go over the two hours when the show just keeps going despite trying to control it.

Last night, our second night in Auckland, New Zealand, was our last show of the year. There’s been so much planning, scheduling and organisation that has gone into this tour it seems hard to find ourselves near the end with one more country to go.

As Lorraine and I walked down the hill from our hotel to join our band and crew for the final gathering of the year, our Christmas lunch, we met a member of last night’s audience who was at pains to tell us how much he’d enjoyed the show. It was humbling and hugely uplifting to realise how sincere his praise was as Lorraine remembered seeing him standing in front of her, eyes closed, taking in the whole set.

After the show I reflected to an old friend how grateful we are to have a listening audience. So much of a rock show is heat and noise but we’ve always been able to have still, silent moments even in a noisy place like the Power Station here in Auckland. Last night was no different as people lingered late in the evening to sing Warren Zevon’s ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’ with us one last time. It’s the closer that’s remained constant on the tour since we first discovered it on a random Spotify playlist on our summer holiday in France in August. We all sing and play it and it has become a song by us to the audience and in turn a hymn of love for the special bond between everyone in the venue. On a perfect night – and there have been a good few these last months – it melts away that fourth wall until there is only one group of people in the room. It’s what gigs need to become, to make them work.

Gratitude towards the audience has taken a long time to learn for me. When I was younger I conceitedly believed I knew better; and playing what people wanted was rather beneath me. How wrong I was. Learning to please people has brought joy to me as well as to the audience and in these mad moments of the breakdown towards the end of Real Gone Kid when all pretence is lost and we are all a sweaty, exhausted mess of musicians tumbling around the stage, the greatest joy comes from knowing everyone is going to be very happy if we just sing ‘woo, oo, oo, oo’ one more time.

I remember playing a support slot way back in 87 at the Town and Country or some such place in North London. I looked out to see banks of male faces squashed in from the stage to the mixing desk. I remember thinking how I didn’t want to play to an audience of blokes or equally an audience of only women and somehow, in some magical way our audience has, since that time, remained beautifully balanced. That balance makes for a caring, listening crowd who also bring an energy to each outing. So, thank you, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand. Thank you for your beautiful scenery, your great welcomes and your  loving response. It’s made all our adventures feel so worthwhile. 

As I’m writing this I’m looking over a beautiful view of the harbour in Auckland as little ships, yachts and ferries scuttle across the bay. It’s summer here and after a short break we return to a Scottish winter, warm fires and short days. I’m looking forward to that.

 I hope you are in a place where you too can enjoy some Happy Holidays. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2024 when we gather next.

I know everyone in Deacon Blue joins me in sending our love and thanks for all your support.

When Glen Campbell’s daughter is sitting beside you in a radio studio it’s difficult not to gush a little. Considering the music her father made it’s impossible not to sound a little star struck – even remotely.

As I’m writing this I’m on the East bay near San Francisco where I’ve spent a glorious November morning with my young grandson. On the way home we passed some men working on the power lines and I thought to myself, ‘I’d tell you about a great song featuring a power line worker if you were a little older.’

Glen Campbell’s great (and definitive) version of Wichita Lineman is only one part of the great legacy left behind by Ashley Campbell’s father. It is, however, quite a legacy. Sometimes, as Larkin bluntly put it, your parents can be more of a hindrance than a help. Stepping out from their shadow has caused more than a few talented offspring to stumble. So it’s interesting to note that, not only is Ashley Campbell doing something beautifully creative, she is also taking a genre much loved by her father and turning it into something fresh and new.

When she was looking to develop her guitar skills she sought out a tutor who could teach her some Django Reinhardt stylings. It was then she was directed to Thor Jensen who had just moved to Nashville and, although oblivious to much of the country music which formed much of her musical background, Thor and Ashley bonded over songwriting and much more. This led to heir first album release, Turtle Cottage, from which they re recorded some tracks in a special session in our new studio at the BBC in Glasgow.

The album contains little more than Thor and Ashley’s voices, guitar and banjo but is a real spark of originality in the rather overcrowded Americana market place where so much can sound so familiar. I spent an enjoyable afternoon with them both a few weeks back and you can hear the session songs and chat on this week’s AC.

You’ll also hear some new records we still haven’t had a chance to play as we tumble towards the end of another exciting year in music. Over the  next few weeks we’ve lined up some special shows celebrating fifteen years of Another Country. On next week’s AC you can hear some classic conversations from across the many years of interviews with Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell and Kacey Musgraves as well as songs from all four artists. In the week after we have recorded a Greatest Hits package of my favourite tracks from the first seven years or so of the AC. There will be another compilation next year. After that we’ll be finishing the year with another chance to hear our C2C highlights from March and our regular round up of fave songs from 2023.

I’ll be in Australia and New Zealand between now and then on the Deacon Blue tour, but look forward to more live radio shows with you all in 2024. Wishing you all the best for the festive season and a good New Year when it comes.

It was this time of year in 1987, as I recall. We (DB) had just gone round the country once again promoting our debut album and something was beginning to happen. It wasn’t anything life changing but back home in Scotland we were packing out a few venues. One of those was Edinburgh’s Queens Hall in November. My memory is chatting to the promoter about a gig that had just happened there a few nights previously. I’d bought a cassette copy of 10,100 Maniacs ‘In My Tribe’ a few weeks earlier and I’d been keen to hear about their gig there. ‘Oh it was great,’ I recall him saying, ‘Natalie was enjoying herself and writing somgs on the piano before the show at the sound check.’ This Natalie Merchant, I found myself thinking, ‘She’s very interesting.’

A few years back I conducted a short interview with Natalie on a visit she made to the BBC at Celtic Connections, so it was great to catch up with her a couple of weeks ago a few days before she played the  Glasgow show as part of her current tour. Her new album, Keep Your Courage, is her first set of new songs in some nine years, though, as she was keen to tell me, there have been other projects in that time. Nevertheless, it’s a remarkable project in many ways, not least because in that ‘downtime’ she underwent surgery which impaired her ability to sing. Her voice, as I’m sure you know, is a uniquely precious instrument which always makes her music quite distinctive.

You can hear the story of the album, the lost  and found voice and the themes of courage and love which permeate the songs this coming Tuesday on Another Country. It’s a fascinating conversation about her life and her great legacy of songs.

In the first hour we shall reflect on last week’s CMA awards which saw Lainey Wilson, a beloved act of this show, walk away with 5 (FIVE!) awards. Elsewhere there were prizes for Jelly Roll and something no one could have foreseen a year ago, as precious CMA award to Tracey Chapman. We’ll have fab new songs from Logan Ledger and Erin Ray, Jamie Wyatt (whose new album is really great) and our own Dean Owens. We will introduce you to Viv and Riley and remind you why we have enthused about Jack Francis.

I shall also tell you about my wonderful Friday night last week when I drove an hour south of where I was staying on The East Bay to see Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express ‘put Livermore on the map.’

It’s two hours of country music , our way, and you can hear it all on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds from five past eight this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can.

There was a time, not that long ago, when the arrival of an AC night on All Hallows Eve might have sent a delicious shiver down my spine. What joy, we would think, that such a festival could fall on our radio night. What fun we might have until…..until…we realised that there are very few spooky pickings to be had and there’s only so many times you can hear The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

It is therefore quite liberating to announce that for two hours on this Tuesday’s show there will be no mention of the date, no digital guising and certainly no square songs rammed into round holes in an obligation to celebrate a popular day in the kids calendar. Not that I have anything against a great Scottish tradition. It has however irked a few of us up here that everyone has decided not to catch on to what Scotland has been doing for centuries but to swallow hook, line and treacle scone the American way of Halloween. Guisers, dookin for apples seem to all have been abandoned for something, which if I’m honest, seems a little less couthie and a little more monetised…but that’s all for another day.

What we have in store for you tonight is a beautifully curated playlist of current records and some vintage classics. We will introduce you to the joys of Twinnie, The Lowlies and re introduce to Margo Cilker, Josiah and The Bonnevilles and Robert Finley.

The Twinnie story is a good one. Despite so many beating a path to Music City from these shores , it seems Twinnie is the first to have gone over with little, other than a small dog and the hope of a career in country music and be on the verge of acheiving success. Last Friday she made her Opry debut and this Tuesday you can hear what the fuss is about.

We are also delighted to welcome a new album from Dylan LeBlanc. He is an artist we’ve been playing for a number of years and who has finally made the record he’s always wanted to make. It’s a beautiful thing too and Dylan’s title track has given us a very good excuse for a little rabbit hole which, fear not, has no known association with Halloween.

It’s two hours of country music, some significant anniversaries and gems along the way. We are on air on FM and on BBC Sounds from 8 this Tuesday evening. Fear not – you are allowed to keep the radio on while you’re giving out the spoils to the guisers. Join me if you can.

Firstly, I want to say thanks if you are one of the 80,000 or so people with whom I’ve shared a live venue over the last month. I’ve not had a chance to meet very many of you but I’ve  been gratified by your warmth and the time you’ve taken to thank Deacon Blue via the many social media channels. It has been a blast and though I’m home for a few weeks I look forward to seeing many more of you all in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa over the next few months.

However, for a few weeks I will be back in my favourite old spot at Pacific Quay to present Tuesday night’s Another Country and I’m excited to be back in the saddle again.

One of the odd things about the road is it doesn’t allow much time for listening  to or inventing new music. I have the benefit of years of experience with this. The prospect of the next show and thinking through what comes next is an all consuming beast. The other thing people probably don’t figure out is we spend a normal working day locked into the venue we are playing and it allows very little time for other pursuits. When there is time on the bus or at the airport it feels better to do anything other than fill your head with more music. It’s true of writing songs. I’ve tried everything: guitars on the bus, a keyboard in my bedroom but, to be honest, the fruits of this labour have proved to be very thin pickings.

So on this bright autumn morning it feels comforting just to be thinking about what we play on Tuesday and not to be over worrying about anything else.

On this coming Tuesday and subsequent days we will have a lot to play and much to discuss. Next year’s Country to Country is now on sale with the line up announced and there have been some significant visits by some of our regular guests to these shores, some tours to come and of course some great new releases from artists whose careers we’ve been following closely. I’ve been driving around with a pile of CDs from Ashley McBryde, Morgan Wade and Tim McGraw stuffed into the glove compartment. I’ve also been filing away the new releases that have caught my attention despite my best efforts to keep my focus on my own songs.

                                                           Floyd Cramer

Sit yourself down and enjoy tracks from Hannah White, Jaime Wyatt, Charlie Worsham and many more plus our special tribute to the late great  Floyd Cramer 90 years on from his birth. It’s country music, our way and we think you’ll love it.

We’ll make our way through some fabulous tracks over these next few weeks and I know you won’t be disappointed. So, in case you need reminding, we’re broadcasting live from five past eight from BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds every Tuesday. You can listen live or catch up any time. Do join me if you can.

If I can play one note and make you cry, then that’s better than those fancy dancers playing twenty notes. Robbie Robertson

One should know better. It should no longer surprise any of us when any member of the big league of artists who we loved growing up pass on. Robbie Robertson was eighty years of age and despite all our best wishes, turned out to be human after all. What has surprised and disappointed me is how poorly the news people in all types of media have failed to grasp just how significant his contribution really was.

For those who don’t know, Robbie Robertson was the spiritual leader, guitarist and principal song writer for (in my opinion) the greatest band that ever was. The Band. They were so well named. The emphasis should always be on the definite article.

A few years ago, when the complete Basement Tapes came out, I interviewed Sid Griffin from the Long Riders about the project. Sid wrote an excellent companion piece and guide to the whole project, which I highly recommend to you. In conversation with Sid around the time he made a very good point which essentially said this project and indeed The band themselves invented Americana. They, of course, didn’t call it that and may well have seen the very term as a little limiting as they really knew no boundaries to their music yet knew exactly where it came from. That place was the great melting pot of blues, folk, hillbilly and soul music which they all absorbed growing up. That Robbie was Canadian too was significant. Perhaps it was that northern detachment married to Levon Helm’s southern stew of influences which made the sound of The Band so unique. Or perhaps it was just that they were all so good and all knew what they should and should not be doing. For Robbie it was the spaces; what he left out as much as what he put in. How often have you had the misfortune of hearing a music-shop guitarist mangle a tune and wish he’d lift his head up and listen? I know it’s happened to me too often to know I rarely want to listen to unnecessary axe grinding.

Robbie’s playing was different. Despite sixties contemporary players being drawn towards the old thirties blues masters, Robbie leaned towards different craftsmen. In his own word he explained it here: “I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.”

How glad we are that Robbie took the time to listen and learn. We will play a couple of beautiful things with Robbie’s name on them on this week’s AC and it may well cause you to go back and listen yourselves. I’m so grateful he left a deep chest of music to enjoy again and again.

Elsewhere we will spend time celebrating an instrument that’s essential to the sound of country music – the mandolin. In the second part of this week’s show we celebrate the mandolin 100 years on from Gibson manufacturing the F5 made famous by Bill Monroe. Listen out for songs old and new which highlight this beautiful instrument. We’re on at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland and whenever you prefer on BBC Sounds.

I still have a few shows for you before I hit the road in September but I’m going to give the blog a little holiday for a couple of months . I’ll be back with you in October.

Summer arrived fairly early and late this year. Last Friday, as we drove east, my son and I, it seemed we were chasing the sun all the way. It arrived by the time we reached Arbroath where we were to spend the evening watching our team (the fabulous Dundee United) start their league campaign. Football chat is for another place and time. What it was really about was dad and lad getting some quality hours together, a drive east, fish and chips at the harbour and some stories and song in the car.

The only son is also (for now) the only pedestrian. Taking driving lessons but unqualified to drive,  it falls upon me to be the chauffeur on all occasions. So it’s up to him to be the DJ on the journey. He told me a great story about Brian Eno’s album Apollo as he played me a track from it. It turns out that when Brian Eno was commissioned to write a soundtrack based around NASA’s Apollo missions he found out that each astronaut was allowed to carry one cassette tape onto the flight module. In an interview in The Guardian in 2009 on the anniversary of the first moon landings, Eno was asked about the pedal steel featured in the tracks. ‘Every astronaut was allowed to take one cassette of their favourite music. All but one took country and western. They were cowboys exploring a new frontier, this one just happened to be in space. We worked the piece around the idea of zero-gravity country music.’

Country ambience. It’s a beautiful thing and on that lovely stretch of road between Glencarse and Invergowrie I was overtaken by the majesty of it all.

Shared music and the surprise of something that you weren’t expecting popping out of your speakers is surely still one of the great joys of listening to music.  That’s why I still believe in the power of a curated radio show which will slay you with a track at just the right moment. I hope there might be a few of these moments coming up for you this week.

Photo by Ebru Yildiz

In the early days of Another Country we enjoyed a visit from The Carolina Chocolate Drops. It was one of those sessions and conversations which made a huge impression. On this week’s show we will tell a little of the story of what happened to the core members of the band and what they are up to now.  CCD were a creative hub so we will play some of the creations from the subsequent solo projects of Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemmons and Leylla McCalla.

Without spoiling things you can also  expect to hear music from Jason Isbell, Caylee Hammock, Jenny Lewis and Josh Ritter. As ever we’ll be on the wireless from 8 this Tuesday evening and available in your own space and time on BBC Sounds whenever you fancy. Do join me if you can.