This seems like a good day to talk about the end of the year. As I write the first person has just been vaccinated against COVID and as Christmas comes upon us we seem to be seeing a pin prick of light ahead. Yesterday for the first time in 2020 I played some songs with my band to an audience…remotely but we were there in real time…and the beautiful sound of drums, bass, guitar and a growling Hammond B3 filled an empty room. I don’t know what it did for the audience but it worked wonders for me.

One of the things that has kept me going this year has been coming into BBC HQ every Tuesday and spinning these records we all love. Apart from visits to the shops and taking the dog out to Pollok Park for his long run it’s the only time my jalopy gets to go anywhere. I’m always delighted to have a small but significant journey to make each week. If there’s one thing that has kept me company all year it’s been music and the constant joy of the new. Over the next two Tuesday nights I’ll get a chance to revisit our favourite songs of the last year. As ever, there will be no countdown, no #1 and nothing going up or down a chart, simply a celebration of what we have loved. On this week’s AC however we get a chance to sweep through all the things we’ve been meaning to play you for weeks but haven’t had time.

So…we will remind you about what we love about Stephanie Lambring who’s moving account of growing up and trying to make it on music row is all contained in the ten songs of Autonomy. It’s all there: Christianity (good and bad bits), sexuality, domestic violence, body image and suicide. It is, however, an uplifting and life affirming listen. We’ll remind you again how worthwhile it is tonight.

We will also celebrate the return of young Harry Lloyd in his moniker of Waiting For Smith, Ross Wilson’s gorgeous new album on vinyl under his alter ego, Blue Rose Code and remind you of another name we have loved for many years, Karima Francis. There’s lots of vinyl, two Elvises and even an Elvis tribute (though that’s not what you might think.)

There’s also our last visit of the year to Nashvegas itself from where Bill DeMain casts a festive eye over Music City to bring us the latest news and healthy gossip about how the country capital is dealing with a socially distanced holiday season. Bill also has the inside track on some famous Christmas cuts.

Listen out for Marcus King, The Chicks, Sara Watkins, Molly Tuttle and our very own Roseanne Reid and Aidan O’Rourke. It all happens in two hours of country music, our style, on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening.

On this week’s Another Country you will hear a conversation and a rather great selection of tracks from Sturgill Simpson. You probably know a bit about Sturgill by now but in case you haven’t caught up with his career here’s a quick resume´:

Sturgill emerged into country music about six years ago when his debut album, High Top Mountain, was released. It was getting  a lot of attention from opinion formers and one or two people started mentioning his name as well as forwarding early copies. It struck me then that Sturgill was the real deal with roots deep in the music of his home state of Kentucky and less bedded in the current fads of Music Row. Naturally, we liked that a lot.

Most of this was borne out when he first visited us, told us his own back story of a career in the navy, a period of manual labour and finally a late entrance into music. Since that first conversation we’ve managed to talk to Sturgill and record sessions or concerts a good number of times in a period it would take other artists to get round to a second record. He’s followed up that debut album with four studio albums in the subsequent five years, a number of successful tours at home and internationally as well as being nominated for and eventually winning a Grammy and delivering a No 1 album on the rock and country charts.

                                    This pic was taken on that first visit in 2014

If that hasn’t been a busy enough time he’s also been acting in TV and recently producing music for other artists including Tyler Childers, Lucette and Margo Price. It’s no wonder the lockdown came as a mixed blessing to Sturgill who, though contracting COVID, was still grateful to spend some time at home with his young family.

Nevertheless, despite delivering a new album at the tail end of last year, he has just released part one of a bluegrass series in which he reinterprets his own back catalogue with the help of Nashville’s finest acoustic pickers.

This Tuesday you’ll hear Sturgill talking about all of that, the studio space where he recorded and shared with the late John Prine, how he went about working with Margo Price and what he plans to do when all of this pandemic is finally over. There’s so much to love about the bluegrass album that, if you’ve not heard Cutting The Grass, I suspect you may well want to add it to your Santa list.

Despite Sturgill taking up a good hour of the show we will also share some great news from Grammy central where those who dish out the awards seem to be beautifully aligned with our favourite records of the last year. Nominations for Americana, Country and Bluegrass feature Little Big Town, The Highwomen, Miranda Lambert, Courtney Marie Andrews and Mickey Guyton. We’re delighted women are, if not in the majority, at least as well represented as the men. Hallelujah! It’s country music – our way for two hours this Tuesday evening from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM. Join me on the wireless or via BBC Sounds if you can.

I’ve never been terribly sure about the ‘Americana’ label. However I found it handy for a while when we had a local record shop which highlighted Americana as a genre and I started to find records I might have missed. This was a long time ago and there is no such shop now and Americana has a UK base and even a UK chart. A Nashville friend once told me how little the Americana chart meant in terms of real sales in the US, so I’m slightly dubious of how purposeful it is here…but that’s another story.

I’ve often thought however, that as a genre, we (on the old AC) have perhaps not given as much space and time to the roots of Americana as we could or should. If there’s an excuse for this it’s the slight fear of over emphasising music which is only favoured by old blokes who dream of motorbike excursions across the midwest and shake their bearded heads in despair of those who drink anything other than craft beer. I once encountered one such chap at a Richmond Fontaine gig who pointed to the stage and declared, ‘You should be playing these guys.’ I countered with the inconvenient truth that we might be the only radio show playing them and that I might be the only radio presenter in attendance.

In truth there is no such attitude from the many Americana acts we do play. In fact many of them point out that there is more support for them on the wireless in the UK than they could expect back home. Nashville itself comes as a slight shock when you discover that lots of the music we associate with the city is wholly absent on the local airwaves. Also absent too is the thing we seem to do here better than America: curate eclectic playlists. To that end, one of the most gratifying aspects of the Americana genre has been their adoption of other roots music which can be criminally overlooked. In recent years there’s been an acknowledgement of older R’n’B artists and other fringe folk musicians on Americana week. Who would like to categorise Anais Mitchell, Sufjan Stevens, Valerie June or Rhiannon Giddens for that matter?

So, on this week’s Another Country we bring you music by the kings and queens of Americana scene. Steve Earle, Mary Gautier, Rodney Crowell and Lucinda Williams yes but also names we don’t play nearly enough: James McMurtry, Swamp Dogg, Don Bryant and Kaia Kater. Americana in the truest sense. Not a haven for old guys who’ve outgrown The Clash but a place which celebrates all cultures, colours and sexual orientations. Hey, in truth…this week’s show’s as good as it gets.

Join me live on BBC Scotland FM or BBC Sounds at five past eight this Tuesday evening.

I haven’t seen many artists multiple times. I never saw The Beatles live, though my pal from school went with his gran! I have seen The Stones twice and there are many artists I love whose gigs I’ve never managed to make. As any musician will tell you, it’s always a bit of a busman’s holiday. We know there’s much to love at the gig but equally we’ve seen the Wizard behind the curtain and we know roughly where the smoke and the mirrors are placed. However I wholeheartedly confess that does not stop me being surprised and delighted by a few songs sung and played in a tiny venue by an artist I’m seeing for the first time. It’s happened enough times for me to know I should never dismiss the possibility of something wonderful occurring when the house lights go down.

Of the artists I’ve seen more than once, Neil Young is in the multiple category. In 45 years or so, however, (that sounds such a long time when you write it down) I’ve only seen him four times. There were two great nights, one was good and the other I fear was maddeningly so over indulgent with guitar solos, prolonged endings and feedback I left early. It was with some satisfaction that I realised I was one of hundreds all heading out before the final number. I hope that’s not the last time I get to see Neil as, over the course of these many years, I’ve always enjoyed what he does. No one can make the album you really want to hear all the time. Everyone should be allowed a little musical wandering; so I have no prescribed Neil repertoire I’d want him to pursue, but, and it’s a big but, I enjoy when he goes country.

It’s always been there of course.  There’s the ragged roots of his first Crazy Horse elpee, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere…how country noir is Down By The River? The Louvins would have been proud. On Harvest it all sounded so down home you’d almost imagine he’d cut it in Nashville. He had. Even on the dark, mourn-filled, hash-hazed Tonight’s The Night there’s an atmosphere of a dilapidated  western Honky Tonk. In this case it’s after hours, the spangly suits and hats have been hung up for the night, drink’s been taken, smoke inhaled and the house band are playing what they really feel.

So it goes with Neil. One minute he’s dueting with Linda Ronstadt or Emmylou Harris and the next he’s discovered computers, or the blues or invented grunge. It’s a wild ride on which you may have to sit through a few bumpy patches while you get to the place you’re heading.

Neil Young turned seventy five last week. There are so many country stops along the journey we thought it only fair to hand over the choice of what we’d play to you folks. I’m grateful for all your suggestions which we’ve tried to include. I’ve also chosen a few myself which we will sprinkle across this week’s show.

As well as that we will play you some fine new things from Julia Jacklin, Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell, Caitlin Cantry, Amy Ray and HC McEntire. It all starts at the usual time of five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me for another very special evening if you can.

Is it me, or have the skies cleared a bit over the last couple of days? I have to tell you that in our house there was a hooping and a hollering at the news of a new American President and a believable vaccine all in a couple of days. I’m not naive, I know there will be a million things people will expect them both to do, that there will a million different voices telling me how little change there is going to be and how really people’s lives will not improve. I know all this and I take it on board.

In respect of the US, what delights me, and it really does delight me reader, is that something decent has happened in a country which I love very much. People have voted – fairly. The world has recognised this and a new President is coming who at least seems compassionate, considerate and given to talking about the problems of his people not boasting about himself. He has, and employs to good effect, a sense of humour, a history of public service and damn it he plays Springsteen as his walk-on music…and not Born in The USA either! He doesn’t hold a Bible above his head as a token of power but has a simple deep faith which he brings to his politics and his engagement with the public.

What, you may well ask, has this got to do with country music? Our show, Another Country, is a celebration of Americana and country music. We recognise that so much of what we love about the music comes from the country where it was born and dreamed up in the first place. Can we separate those artists and repertoire from their time and culture? I doubt it. Hearing roots music is to understand why people gathered to play and sing in the first place. A couple of weeks ago we spent two glorious hours celebrating the contribution of African American artists to country music and we recognised within that story the huge struggle there was for so many of these voices just to be heard.

When the leader of a country makes it clear he isn’t listening to those voices, when he twists facts to suit his own ends and then behaves like a spoiled child as democracy takes its inevitable course it’s impossible not to feel a little spark of joy. Welcome back America; we missed you when you were gone. As one of our favourite artists, Jason Isbell put it, ‘America just got dropped off at rehab.’ It’s the perfect image: lots of hard questions, soul searching and eventually a life long commitment to follow a better path. I commend them for starting the journey. It’s one we might well consider joining ourselves.

This Tuesday we too will have a little spring in our step as we take the temperature in Nashville with our Music City correspondent, Bill DeMain. We’ll reflect on the times, a little more on the recent losses in the country community and Bill will point us in the direction of some new names. It’s 2020, it’s been a tough year, but it really is about to get a whole lot better.

Join us this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from eight as we play you some great music to match the mood.

Daydreaming as a young person I often wondered what my favourite rock stars did when they weren’t making records or touring. How did they spend an average day? I used to spend hours thinking about Neil Young in particular. On a spring morning what took up his thoughts, where did he spend time and why was it taking so long to hear the new album?

Having spent the best part of a lifetime in the business of making music I can tell you with some certainty that there are any number of ways to put off writing or recording a song. One of the joys of presenting Another Country is hearing the many different ways the creative muse works with my songwriting guests. I find my mind thinking back to Nick Lowe’s image of the radio playing through the wall from the flat next door to describe the song beginning to emerge in your consciousness. What’s perfect about the allusion is the knowledge that, at any time, the songwriter can simply move away, stop listening or ask the neighbour to turn the radio off. Dealing with the song is often the decision we never make.

©Jay Blakesberg

So it was with some interest that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings revealed to their audience the songs which they dreamed up in between records but which they chose to ignore for their early albums of this century. In fact it’s intriguing to think that so many songs were written even though there was an eight year gap between Soul Journey and Harrow and The Harvest. More will be revealed about that particular gap when Vol 3 of this Boots No 2 series comes out later this month. Meanwhile we have two volumes of lost songs to get to know. This coming Tuesday on Another Country you can hear a conversation I recorded with Gillian and David from their house in Nashville. You’ll hear why it was so important to bring these records out sooner than might have been expected, why they nearly lost all the tapes in the Nashville Tornado and why some of these great cuts have never surfaced until now. It’s a fascinating conversation and we’ll give over the second hour of this week’s show to the songs and stories of Boots No 2.

In the first hour of the show we’ll recognise that Tuesday is going to be a momentous day in America’s story courtesy of a wonderful new release from Anais Mitchell and Mick Flannery. We’ll pay tribute to the lives and work of Jerry Jeff Walker and Billy Joe Shaver who have both died in the last couple of weeks. We’ll catch up with some new names; step forward India Ramey and Bonnie Whitmore and we’ll renew an old friendship with the great Roseanne Cash. Oh and don’t miss Maddie and Tae too.

As ever we’ll be on BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday evening at five past eight and you can catch us anywhere else in the world courtesy of BBC Sounds on the night or from thirty days after. Join me if you can.

I’m out of my comfort zone, so bear with me. On BBC Radio Scotland we’re celebrating Black History Month and we’ll probably be the one Music show who could have a problem with this. There’s no doubt country music and even the wider genre of Americana is (in the main) made by white people from the southern states. In fact it could be argued that country music is the pop music of the south except, as we know, its appeal is much, much broader.

Similarly it would be myopic to imagine white country musicians have no crossover with African-American artists. To say music draws from a common well is really the greatest understatement. So, on this week’s Another Country we will bring you a very special show which celebrates the common source of the roots music we all enjoy. We’ll reach back to string bands, jug bands, the blues, gospel, rhythm and blues and hillbilly music to bring you two hours of reasons why we should all be grateful to what black music has brought us.

One of the strange things about any of these themed shows or special months is the notion that we have to dedicate some time to show something that should be part of the fabric of cultural life. For me and people like me we can all nod in broad agreement that Black Lives Matter or that Black History Month is a ‘good thing.’ However as I watched the Trial of The Chicago Seven on Saturday night (I recommend it) it occurred to me once more how often in my lifetime black people have been marginalised, abused or exploited.

For me it’s an occasional journey. These are not concerns that fill my everyday life. My life is concerned with doing my own work, cooking, shopping and the usual stuff that fills an old Scottish bloke’s world. However for George Floyd, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Philando Castile and Breonna Taylor and their families, this isn’t a month or even a year. It’s every day, every hour of every day and it goes without saying that their lives matter. It’s a tale taken up by Tre´Burt whose song about George Floyd’s murder is retold in a remarkable and moving ballad just released and which is one of the most vital songs you’ll hear on this week’s show.

It’s one of twenty plus tracks we will play along with short excerpts from conversations we’ve recorded over the years with African-American artists. Listen to the stories in the songs of Linda Martell, Rhiannon Giddens, Darius Rucker, Yola, Adia Victoria and Charley Pride and, if you tune in you’ll be reminded again why we owe so much to Black music and why country music sounds as good as it does. We’ll also be reminded to think for a while about the African experience and why everyday life is still such a dangerous struggle for so many.

We’re on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening from five past eight. Join me if you can.

You’re either a radio person or you’re not. Inherited from my late father, I am a radio person. Even now I could tell you his own radio highlights; what he tuned into and when he tuned out. I could tell when he’d turn up the volume and I knew when he’d turn it down, change stations or worse still…though rare…turn the dam thing off.

The radio must have been there without us even knowing it was on. As kids we didn’t have a record player in the house until I was half way through primary school, so how else did I know all the songs I did? The radio was on in the car, in the kitchen and eventually it would be stolen upstairs to be played in my room.

When I went to secondary school we would often get a lift in my father’s car. The trick was to leave it on Radio One for as long as it didn’t annoy him knowing that, at any minute, his hand could flick the dial and spin us back into Radio 2 land or worse….the news. Privately I approved of Radio 2 because of the greatness that was Terry Wogan. I didn’t even think I liked him but realised I just didn’t want to turn him off. In those days (early 70s) there was little or no pop music we could really love on 2 but there were classics, big band, jazz tunes, standards and country hits to keep us thinking. If we managed a journey on Radio 1 of course that would also offer a box of delights. A breakfast show could include Elton John, Queen, Billy Connelly and Kenny Rogers or Stevie Wonder. Tell that to our colonial cousins across the pond and they writhe around in a jealous rage having had to choose the format of radio they liked before they even turned on the tranny.

I also got to thinking how dismal my own kids secondary school radio had been. Almost all their potential breakfast show listening had been dominated by Chris Moyles on Radio One, who famously, never played music until he was forced to. He was a skilled broadcaster…maybe even the best at what he did/does but I fear a generation lost out on the joy of the divergent playlists we were offered as teenagers.

Surprise is the secret weapon of radio. There is always joy in an unexpected old favourite at the time of day you weren’t expecting it. (Thank you Ken Bruce for Steely Dan this morning) But there is also something life affirming about a record that is so startlingly new it makes you want to turn the car around. For all the wonder of streaming algorithms nothing ever pops up from my phone as wonderfully as it does on the radio.

It’s a mantra my producer, Richard Murdoch, and I have tried to live by. Keep playing songs that will delight and surprise. I love it when we can get from Lefty Frizzell to Leon Bridges and end up with Laura Marling or Maren Morris ..and believe me we do.

We will have as catholic a playlist as ever this Tuesday evening.

If we haven’t already played you almost all of Tenille Townes album, then I can’t think why. Finally we are catching up with Tenille on this week’s show. I chatted to her from my studio in Glasgow to her own space in Nashville a couple of weeks ago. You can hear all about her story of teenage success through to her real country breakthrough in this, the most unlikely of years. Tenille is a talented singer songwriter who, I’m certain will be a huge star in the next few years. Listen in to a fascinating conversation on this week’s AC.

Please note that BBC Scotland  have withdrawn all their individual Facebook Pages for music shows. So I will be posting the blog and adding your comments and thoughts on my own FB Musicians page…(which is a bit quiet anyway just now) https://www.facebook.com/rickyrossofficial

As ever we’re on air from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening or any time you choose on BBC Sounds for the next 30 days. Join me if you can.

I’ve been out early these last couple of weeks. My early runs with the dog take me through the glorious paths of Pollok Park in Glasgow’s south side. For a while there it seemed the summer would stretch on forever, bathing us in sunshine to compensate for all 2020 had thrown at us. However, it was not to be. Autumn arrived as soon as October started and in that short time the leaves have turned and fallen.

It’s no surprise this was the Romantic Poets favourite time of year. Tramping over the golds and red of a wild wood would melt even the most hardened of hearts. If the colours of the season didn’t nudge at your soul I suspect there is still something in the inevitability of nature giving in to the bitter realities of the coming winter which will give you cause for reflection. I’m just back from a long, slower wander which feels more in keeping with the time of year. At one point we stopped and turned round to stop ourselves getting lost, but in reality all of us could have kept on walking for miles. Perhaps the fact we can’t meet indoors is making ramblers of us all?

All of this came together the other morning for me. Driving back from the park I happened upon a new song by Kevin Morby,the Kansas song-smith, which included a burning camp fire right in the centre of the track. It was a beautiful, fall-full moment which delighted me with its sonic crackle as much as it pleasantly surprised. Like the sea there is something important and unique about the sound of flames tearing through wood and leaves on an open fire. In this instance there was also something pretty essential about it being in the song. Listen out for the moment on this week’s Another Country.

As ever we’re juggling many choices to bring you the best of what we have been listening to over the last seven days or so. We’re going to remind you again about the Ferris and Sylvester session still available on BBC and play you a little of the music they recommended to us on their session a couple of weeks back. We’ll mourn the passing of legendary Nashville artist and seminal writer, Mac Davis whose back catalogue included one of the greatest Elvis Presley songs of all time. In the same vein we’ll bring you another track from the Elvis album of his 5 day/night Nashville session of 50 years ago. It’s another magical moment and you can catch up with the whole thing next month when the 4CD box set arrives just in time for your Santa lists.

There’s so much more too, but you’ll need to join us this Tuesday evening from five past eight for the full experience. We’re on BBC Radio Scotland FM and thereafter on BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

There’s only one name you might not know in this week’s Another Country. You’ll be familiar with the artists we are playing… Faith Hill, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, Brandy Clark, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and…Lady Gaga! You’ll recognise the songs too. From Tim’s Humble and Kind, a country #1 from 2016 to last year’s anthem to faith in community, The Highwomen‘s ‘Crowded Table’ you’ll know so many songs on this week’s show from the opening bars.

The only name with which you may be less familiar is the writer of every song you will hear: Lori McKenna. Over the course of the last dozen or so years we’ve played the songs Lori has written for other artists. In recent years too, we’ve played the songs she has written for her own career. Interestingly it’s her own life as a solo artist which kicked off her songwriting career. Hailing from the same part of the world, Mary Gauthier who was based in Boston in the early part of her career told the Nashville people about Lori McKenna and encouraged her to come down to Music City to consider something which she admits she then found a difficult concept: co-writing. To say she warmed to this is a vast understatement. Since she first made the trip her co-writing credits are on songs cut by the list of artists I mentioned at the top of the blog as well as so many more. Her regular gig is the three-way session writes she conducts with her Love Junky friends, Liz Rose and Hillary Lindsey. Though she now collaborates with a wide range of other Nashville writers, she is however almost unique as a successful country songwriter who has never lived in the city.

LORI MCKENNA
http://www.sacksco.com/pr/lori_mckenna.html
Credit: Becky Fluke

Lori is a native of Stoughton, Massachusetts and it was there she spoke with me from her home studio a couple of weeks ago. We talked about her family who still live nearby and the recurring theme in her own work: the loss of her mother at the age of her seven. It’s a theme which comes up again in a beautiful song on her new album, The Balladeer, dedicated to her elder sister, Marie. Her own family come up again and again in her own work and as someone who wrote songs for her young children it’s a practice she’s continued even as they have grown and flown the nest. No parent couldn’t be moved by ‘When You’re My Age,‘ and no one who has experienced their own parent’s ageing process couldn’t be unaffected by ‘People Get Old’ from 2018’s The Tree.

On this Tuesday’s AC we’ll celebrate the songs Lori McKenna has written for other people and her own eleven album solo career which is completed by 2020’s The Balladeer. It’s going to be a glorious two hour celebration of song which starts this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.