If there’s one movie I’ve been recommending recently it’s the one our Nashville correspondent, Bill DeMain, recommended to us a few months ago. Blue Moon, the imaginary last encounter between Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers is perhaps the best, certainly most enjoyable, film I have seen in a very long time. It’s also the perfect film for anyone (like me) who is a songwriting nerd. Bill told me recently that he turned round to his friend at the screening to declare that ‘finally Hollyowood has made a film just for Bill DeMain.’

The era of Rodgers and Hart was one where the main focus of their output was via stage musicals. In reality the real success in these came when Richard Rodgers combined with Oscar Hammerstein, which is the centre of the story of Blue Moon. Nevertheless most people would still declare the Rodgers and Hart catalogue to be the gold standard of song partnerships. Bewitched, My Funny Valentine, Manhattan…the list goes on and on and is of such high quality that a rookie songwriter might want to give up before he even started. The trick, however, is to be inspired not down hearted.

Of course I have heard it being said, (and more often than I’d care for) ‘Oh, I don’t really like musicals.’ My heart sinks as, of course, the simple riposte is, ‘well, which musicals don’t you like?’ There is almost nothing in common between A Little Night Music, We Will Rock You and Paddington. (I haven’t seen the last two…but I’m sure you get my drift.) In a similar way I have very little tolerance for those who say they ‘don’t like country music. In the case of country music similarities between different styles and traditions have an even wider disparity than my musicals cmparison.

If you don’t like Toby Keith you may well still love Tyler Childers and those who have no time for Kacey Musgraves may still find solace in Shania...the comparisons go on and on. What I find most interesting is what brings people in rather than what leaves people out. This year our regular feature on most weeks of the AC is ‘Country Game Changers.’ A  while back I asked you to nominate songs which have felt so significant they have changed country music or made such a strong mark on your own listening tastes. I’m delighted to say that this week’s nomination is one of the great singer songwriters who first broke through in that new traditionalits era may of us enjoyed in the late eighties.

Houston’s very own Rodney Crowell has been a guest here at the AC many times in the years we have been on air. It’s an early Rodney record we’re going to play as this week’s game changer and I can verify that Rodney is’s songs were one of the key factors which drew me into the genre. The great thing is Rodney is still making new music and visits these shores soon too.

We’ll have so much more of course and ovver two hours of Another Country we hope there’s something that might take your fancy and even disabuse you of the notion that you don’t like country music. As the good Chuck Prophet would say, everyone needs a little heartbreak and country music will do that for you.

Join me if you can this Tuesday on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland FM.

The other day I found myself staring at the departures board at an unfamiliar airport. I was temporarily taken by the choices in front of me and it felt a little disappointing to be heading in the opposite direction when there was a flight to San Francisco leaving within a couple of hours.

It is there my daughter and family live and it started a mental travelogue which took me across the continent and  inevitably landed me in America’s Music City. Spinning my smart phone map I was delighted to see I could quickly locate the house where the family lived then slipping across I went for a virtual drive through Nashville’s West End past all the old familiar land marks. It reminded me of nights when I’d be writing in the city and inevitably tune my rental car radio to 650 MW and the city’s great WSM Radio Station. There, in the days before he took a well deserved retirement, Eddie Stubbs would broadcast every evening and suddenly the airwaves became a place of discovery. No artist would ever be played without the pre or post explainer from the erudite Eddie and I particularly recall one night him explaining to the listener how well The Delmore Brothers were always attired. It didn’t matter the occasion, Eddie told us, the brothers always came to a concert or radio session wearing suits and ties impeccably laundered.

It reminded me we need to play some Delmores music on the show and on this week’s packed AC we shall bring you a significant Delmores hit which will inspire the second hour where we are playing some great current country duets including a fabulous new track by Glaswegians Alice Faye and Julian Santamaria.

Before all that we will welcome Courtney Marie Andrews as our special guest. Courtney is in Glasgow to play at St Luke’s on Monday evening and although I couldn’t make the gig I just received gushing praise from some family members who were there. Courtney is an old friend of the show and over the last ten years she’s made a series of beautifully written and produced albums which highlight her singing and songwriting. The new album Valentine comes complete with all the usual heartbreak we’d expect and as well as exploring the background to the songs we’ve asked Courtney to pick some of her favourite country songs. You won’t be disappointed.

It all starts at 8 pm this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland FM. Join me live if you can.

There is a beautiful space in the heart of BBC’s Pacific Quay building. It’s not the foyer, where so many events happen – but is less than perfect for acoustic performances, and it’s certainly not the large television studios. But, tucked away under the enormous stairway of the building, is Studio One. There all manner of radio plays, Loose Ends, radio sessions and many other activities are committed to tape. (ditally speaking)

It is from there, this week, that we shall broadcast the entire two hours of Another Country with the help of great guests who all happen to be in town for Celtic Connections and also happen to be old friends of the show. Playing live will be Red Sky July featuring Ally McErlaine (formerly of Texas) and Shelly Poole. (Alishas’s Attic) Their recent album Misty Morning will be the centre piece of the conversation and we shall hear live versions of songs from that collection as well as a rather well chosen cover version. If that’s not enough they have also picked some Country gems to play which we’ll delight over together.

The first time Red Sky July visited 15 years ago!

In the second hour of the show we welcome Ashley Campbell for the third time. Ashley is the youngest daughter of the late, great, Glen Campbell whose contribution to country music needs no introduction. If Glen’s voice and guitar playing were not reason enough to love his music he often entertained Scottish fans with a blast on the bagpipes. Ashley’s song, Remembering, which featured on her father’s final documentary, I’ll Be Me. If you’ve never seen it, I recommend it to you.

More recently Ashley released Goodnight Nashville which features her own songwriting and playing. She’ll play some selections from that album tonight and we’ll talk about her own memories of her father who, in his friend’s Jimmy Webb’s words, brought country music to the mainstream.

Ashley, along with her partner Thor Jensen will also be bringing us some great records which we will play out over the course of the show. It’s a very special AC available to hear live from five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or on BBC Sounds any time you like. Join me if you can.

Let me take you back to the late eighties. It’s somewhere on the south coast of England and the record label CBS are holding their quarterly sales and marketing conference. This is not the big wakoo they hold annually every September to set up for the all important final quarter. It is a spring event with less hoopla than the autumn version and the sales and marketing guys (and believe me it’s 90% guys) get to let off a little steam combined with getting their colleagues excited about the records coming through in the next few months.

For some reason a couple of us have been invited to share the event and this has the unfortunate outcome of letting the artists witness how their work is being handled by the label. Perhaps we were naive, and perhaps we just had never enquired enough but somehow the Mark Twain adage that “Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made,” now seems very apt. As each marketing manager brought their products up to the gathered workforce the need to surpass the impact of the previous presentation increased. So it was that one unfortunate staffer found himself with the task of introducing the new album by one of the greatest artists his label had ever been lucky enough to call one of their own. The presentation was mainly visual and centred around the size of Dolly Parton’s breast size with accompanying visuals bringing cheers and hollers from the assembled rabble. For us , it was too much. We had been sitting in the front row in lieu of our own record being presented and we made no small fuss of leaving our seats and walking out of the event.

Now it was bad enough watching how a fellow artists record had been diminished but given we were fans of Dolly Parton and believed her to be up there with Springsteen, Dylan, George Michael and all the other flagship acts on the label, it was galling to see how disrespectful this was.

The trouble then, as it has often been in this country’s media, that Dolly Parton has never been taken seriously enough. It’s almost impossible to list the number of ways she has changed the face of popular music but let me at least point to a few: She wrote her own songs when 99% of country hits were written by outside writers, she walked out of a successful TV partnership because she knew she wanted to speak for her self, she has had success over six decades in multiple countries and by success…I mean SUCCESS! I could go on.

On this week’s AC we will anticipate Dolly Parton’s 80th Birthday (19th January) by playing cuts from all these decades. Believe me there is so much more could play too but safe to say Dolly is another great Country game changer in this year where we are celebrating all the great country artists who have changed the genre. From five past eight this Tuesday evening join me for this special show on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland .

It’s the start of another year and, as often I’m given to thinking over again, what is it that we love about music? Why do we get so hooked, charmed, consumed by tiny little songs which last barely three minutes but make us want to hear them again and again and again. It’s often too at this time of year that I think about the great Buddy Holly and that catalogue of recordings he managed to accumulate at such a tender age before he left this world so violently.

Buddy Holly was only twenty two years old when he was killed in February 1959 before most people reading this were born, no doubt, and before some of the more seismic events informed what we understand about popular music even happened. His records were made in the days before multi track recording and stand as a testament to great performances of ground breaking musicians , recorded by people who knew how to capture the magic in a short space of time. All of these recordings were made in mono with almost no overdubs. Needless to say that recreating that sound today would take days of digital noodling.
Mono is how many of us fell in love with pop music. We heard it on old car radios and tinny transistors and going in and out of signal in high streets, tunnels and under bridges…and we loved it all.

On this week’s edition of the AC I’m paying tribute to Raul Malo whose death was announced last month. Raul was a frequent visitor to Scotland with and without The Mavericks. The interview I recall highlights his sheer joy at recording an album in Mono – called ‘Mono‘ some ten years ago.  Raul and The Mavericks were a unique band of musicians. Embraced by country music and Americana fans they also had a huge audience among the Latino community from where they emerged originally. That blend of Country, Rock n Roll, Latin and Pop music proved to be such a winning combination which brought them huge success in Europe as well as in the US. We’ll play some great Raul/Mavericks songs just to remind you.

We shall also pay tribute to Joe Ely whose death was announced just before Christmas and who was a highly regarded member of the country/Americana community.

As well as these tributes we aim to bring you new records of note for the new years. Listen out for wonderful things from Valerie June, Margo Price, Tyler Ballgame and Courtney Marie Andrews. We will also bring you new acts we are excited about as well as a few records you really want to hear again and again. I’ll be back on BBC Radio Scotland FM and BBC Sounds this Tuesday evening from five past eight. Join me if you can.

It was last night while I was out walking that I caught the first real tingle of the festive season. I was out delivering cards to my neighbours and in the process of being postie I met up with three of the folks I was calling on. As it happened I hadn’t spoken to any of them for quite some time, not out of indifference or division you’ll understand, but simply because we hadn’t bumped into each other recently. Since our old dog, Alfie, died last year we have walked out less and stayed home a little more. Driving away from your house does not allow the best chance of meeting up with the folks living nearby.

So if there’s a new year resolution I think mine has to be to walk and talk more. I am however grateful for the familiarity of our local ‘hood. We feel relative newcomers even though we’ve lived in our house for the last thirty one years and I still feel there are many locals I haven’t yet encountered. So, if you’re reading this and passing me over the holidays , do say hello.

If that tingle factor hasn’t happened for you yet I hope this week’s Christmas AC may be the thing you need, even though you didn’t know you’d missed it. This coming Tuesday evening I’ll be on the airwaves with a broad selection of AC Christmas favourites and a few newer tracks we haven’t broadcast over the last eighteen years or so. The country community are given to celebrating the holiday season more fervently than any other genre. No country artist worth the name can reach peak performance without delivering an album of yuletide classics. The trouble is they all tend to cut the same classics as each other and it seems pointless filling up the airwaves with more of the rather bland offerings that come out each December. So forgive us if we repeat ourselves but we’ve chosen to make this week’s AC special a wide take on the Christmas classics.

You’ll hear John Prine, The Youngsters, Los Lobos, The Staple Singers and the great Mahalia Jackson. There will be Santa and all the usual nonsense but we’ll also get to the heart of the story via Bruce Cockburn, Mahalia Jackson and The Louvin Brothers. Whether you’re affiliated to a particular religion or have no need of it I promise you we will try to bring songs which illuminate one of the world’s great stories. For me, the idea of a God who comes to be born in a stable still moves me beyond words. I hope you feel the power of the nativity story in this special show too. Thank you for listening over the last twelve months. I’ll be with you again when January comes. Have a peaceful Christmas season.

Yes, it’s that time of year…well…it’s the first part of that time. For once, I’ll cut straight to the car chase: On this week’s Another Country we will play Part One of our Best of The Year. I should qualify that ‘best’ thing a little. I’d suggest all of us could imagine lists of things that deserve to be crowned ‘the best.’ So on these nights this is simply a nod to the artists we’ve enjoyed over the course of the year. Sometimes there’s songs we’ve played and loved and sometimes it’s simply a case of choosing one song by an artist we’ve played a whole bunch over the last twelve months. (step forward Charley Crockett)

There’s another qualification I need to confess. This year’s list is essentially my list. My long time producer, Richard Murdoch, has been stolen away on other wireless duties for the last couple of months of this year and I’ve been handed the keys of the record cupboard to make up my own list.  I have missed his input but I think I’m pretty sure he’d agree on most of the picks.

This week then will have two hours of songs I think worthy of your attention should you still be searching for that perfect Christmas gift or even if you are about to write that letter to Santa. If you’ve not been naughty you could perhaps want to look out for some of these artists’s albums which have put a smile on my face over the course of 2025. On this week’s show that list will include Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, Tyler Childers and The War and Treaty. Now those names you might expect but you may not have expected to hear The Kentucky Gentlemen, Case Oats or Lainey Gardner but you will.

The thing is we could have played so much but I’ve really tried to pick things which truly delighted and surprised. Occasionally we’ve managed to spend time with the artists concerned and on some occasions I’ve caught their live show which has perhaps focussed my attention all over again. (that’s you Cody Johnson) Sometimes I’m playing one song from albums where I could easily be picking ten or twelve (that’s you I’m looking at Lainey Wilson) and sometimes there’s just one song because, well, often there’s only a need for one song.

Whichever way, this week’s AC will be all killer and no filler. If you think I’ve missed anything significant feel free to let me know but don’t forget Part two will be broadcast next week. I’ll let this blog speak for both these shows and will be back just before Christmas for a final blog of the year.  The first of these special shows starts this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about country music over the last seventeen years of the AC it’s that whenever I think I know something it, inevitably, opens up a door to an area I know nothing about. In 2018 (one year out for some reason) we paid a tribute to Cindy Walker who had been a century before (2017). On that night we included significant cuts by her fellow Texans including songs from Willie Nelson who had brought out an entire Cindy Walker album shortly before her death in 2006.

However if you dig deeper into the Cindy Walker story you find that her songs cry out for women’s voices . Of course with a catalogue of 500 plus songs it’s almost impossible to have a complete collection. That being said Grey De Lisle, actor, voice over superstar and folk singer, has assembled a fine array of country and Americana women to contribute versions of Cindy songs for a new compilation of her songs. ‘It’s All Her Fault’ has been released as a celebration of Cindy Walker’s art but also to raise money for the home where she lived with her mother and in which she wrote nearly all her songs every day of her working life. That house  has now fallen into disrepair and the ambition of this new album  is to raise the necessary funds to turn the house into a living museum celebrating Cindy Walker’s songwriting – an ambition I endorse. The more I’ve read of Cindy Walker the more admiration I have for a remarkable career and for someone who showed remarkable chutzpah in getting her songs heard in the first place. As Elizabeth Cook sang, sometimes it takes balls to be a woman.

When Cindy was finally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997 she left the stage to a standing ovation and fellow Hall of Fame inductee Harlan Howard described her as “the greatest living songwriter of country music.”

Grey De Lisle and her fellow performers put together a great selection of songs which will only make you want to dig deeper into the Cindy Walker story. On this week’s show we’ll play a track from the compilation by one of our favourite artsts, Amythyst Kiah as well as hear one of her most successful cuts and a selection sung by the songwriter herself.

You know, of course, we’ll have so much more too including beautiful new songs from Kelsea Ballerina, Stephen Wilson Jr and even an early festive offering from The Old Crow guys. It’s all in two hours of country music – our way – this Tuesday from five past eight on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

Every day, so they say, is a school day. And so it was this morning when a line in a novel led me to that wonderful Danny Kaye song The Inchworm, written by the great Frank Loesser . Then, as luck would have it, Spotify rolled on and I found myself encountering the songs and poems of Molly Drake for the first time. If you too have not discovered Molly Drake, Frank Loesser or even The Inchworm there are wonderful things to find for you out there.

I remember reading a preface to a book on the French Impressionists which opened with an apt slogan. ‘The world is full of such wonderful things, we should all be as happy as kings.’  It seemed to me then, a fairly serious youth, to make sense of how painters could keep painting and beautiful art could continue to be made even when the world around the artists is in self-destruct mode. It is often worth remembering , and not difficult on one of the most beautiful days of early winter here on the west coast of Scotland, that there are always great things to celebrate.

My Molly Drake discovery however also fills me with FOMA worry. What have I been missing all these years? Molly was the poet and songwriter mother to the late, and very great Nick Drake whose music was also discovered by new genertaions of people decades after his early death. No one I knew talked or listened much to Nick Drake as I was growing up but somehow the music found an audience to make him a posthumous folk hero. How comforting all of that could have been to his poor mother we shall never know but given she died a good twenty years on from the loss of her only son gives hope that she may have enjoyed how much his music came to be lauded.

I can’t think of why any of this matters to this week’s AC other than I hope you manage to find some music that will make your own life a little better over the next wee while. Isn’t that why we listen and listen again? We will be in reflective mood this week too as we think back over the last year in country and look at what the Country Music Association has recognised in their awards cermony last week. For some people this is the biggest night of the year and for mainstream country artists and the industry it is certainly bigger than any other gongs bash. We’ll play some winners, losers and worthy contenders this Tuesday evening.

We shall also play some new things too by The Barr Brothers, Sierra Ferrell and even Jon Batiste! We will also pay tribute to Tod Snider who died recently and was affectionately known as ‘The King of East Nashville.’

It’s a packed two hours of country music, our way from eight o’clock this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

Like yourself, no doubt, I’ve read, listened and watched many interviews with Neil Young over the last 50 years. Even as recently as last week I still have a sharp intake of breath when I come across him talking about his single minded approach to his career. He openly talks about how willing he is to follow his own path despite the effect on any colleagues, friends or collaborators. Now to many this speaks about the courage of the artist but even from his own perspective he admits that,  “You can’t go along creating and changing without hurting a lot of people.”

It is that duality which has kept many of us fascinated in what come next. Are we going to get the pure country folk Neil of Comes a Time or Harvest, the dark brooding, even grieving Neil of Tonight’s The Night or perhaps the political Neil of Living With War? A few years ago I read “Waging Heavy Peace,” Neil’s autobiography, and was astonished how all the contradictions we’ve all seen in Neil over the years are there in plain sight. The millionaire who rants against the corporate, The environmentalist who rejoices in travelling back and forward (hundreds of miles) between his houses and hilariously the rocker who has stood in front of howling loud speakers for sixty years telling us about the quality of sound files.

But it’s all this that makes Neil Young the fascinating artist we know and love. After all this is an artist whose appearance/ non appearance at Glastonbury caused a media flurry at the beginning of 2025. He seemed to have no idea about the details of the festival but accused them of being ‘under corporate control of the BBC.’ It’s fairly clear from that outburst he knew very little about the BBC too. Then there was his withdrawl from Spotify because they hosted a podcast he didn’t like! For a minute he was followed up the hill by Joni Mitchell until they both realised there was no one marching behind them. I’m sure you can find your own mad examples.

But, but, but I say again….maybe this is why we all fall in love with the music and the man. I remember him singing about his life being an ‘open book’ and perhaps that is why we keep reading it. It reflects our own contradictions, mini hypocrisies and double standards and perhaps it allows us to feel a little bit better about our failings. The songs, the voice and the guitar are all so special that we can’t help listening.

On the AC this week we shall devote our entire two hours to celebrating the country side of Neil Young. There is, of course, another side which gave him the moniker  ‘Godfather of Grunge’ which I will let others explore. For us, there are enough country connections to fill hours of radio. But we have satisfied ourselves with songs from across the decades and great versions of his songs by Dolly Parton, The Byrds, KD Lang, Waylon Jennings and many more.  It all starts at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Do join me of you can.