In 2022 a kindly listener sent me a tweet of a song called Broken Bird by a new artist called Hannah White. It was a gorgeous song which actually referenced country music within its lyric and it felt like a perfect fit for the AC. One thing led to another, we played the song again, I listened more and by the September of that year Hannah and her musical and life partner Keiron Marshall were opening for me on my solo tour.

That, however , is really only where the story starts. It felt to me that, not only were Hannah and Keiron making my solo and radio audiences very happy, they were becoming good friends whose deep love of music shone through in every performance and every conversation. After the tour closed we met up again a few months later at the UK Americana Awards in Hackney, North London, where Hannah’s song Car Crash had been nominated for UK Americana Song of the year. To complete a perfect story, the song won and I celebrated like I’d won the damn thing myself., such was my delight at an award going to a such a worthy winner.

Cut to 2023 and Hannah’s new album  called Sweet Revolution came out and even included a cameo appearance by your radio host. Since those early days I have been encouraging Hannah and Keiron to venture north and visit us on the radio show. On this week’s AC we will finally get them to appear live when they come into our new music studio, perform live and we get a chance to ask Hannah lots of questions about where these remarkable songs come from. As I witnessed again on Sunday at The Glad Cafe where Hannah was helping close The Glasgow Americana Festival, audiences react to Hannah’s performance because she leaves nothing back in the dressing room. Her’s is a performance from the heart and it does all the things a great performer should aim for . Expect laughter, tears and deep joy. Hannah will be with us in the second hour of this week’s show and Keiron will be there on guitar and harmonies too.

In the first hour we have some great new artists and a good few familiar friends. Listen out for Eric Church in a beautiful tribute song raising funds for Hurrican Helene victims from his home state. Listen too to our good friend John Murry as he unites with The Cowboy Junkies own Michael Timmins. We’ll also have new music from two of the artists we’re excited about meeting at C2C 2025; Cody Johnson and Wyatt Flores. Finally we’ll remind you of the fabulous voice of Heather Little as she duets with our special guest Hannah White on her new single. It’s a packed two hours which all kicks off at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds. Do join me if you can.

There’s one thing I often find myself retelling about Kris Kristofferson when I recall the one night I saw him play in Glasgow. It was the woman leaning over balcony shouting (there were always a good few women shouting at Kris). ‘Marry me Kris.’ He brushed it off in the gentlemanly way he’d been causally disregarding such proposals over the many decades he’d visited the city. If he managed to ignore that particular approbation he was keener to respond to the frequent requests which were usually shout outs for some big songs. ‘If we did that one then the night would be over.’ Kris would reply.

Of course, with Kris, there were were so many big songs and he was, as ever, over modest. Which song could possibly end the show? Help Me Make It Through The Night, For The Good Times or the song he himself credits with his big breakthrough, Me and Bobby McGee? Take your pick. There are so many great songs in the Kris Kristofferson catalogue which will continue to be played long after his death which was announced earlier this week.

That gig by Kris had seen him do something he’d never done for most of his life; play a solo show. Accompanied only by his guitar and alone on the stage he’d first performed solo in Scotland a few years before and the format had become his preferred option each time he returned. That night and the many other times he performed here over the years he would invite my good friend and colleague Roddy Hart to open for him. Roddy knew him well and credits Kris with life affirming advice in a beautiful tribute he posted on his own socials. In 2010 the AC caught up with Kris and talked about that catalogue of songs before he played a beautiful show at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall. On this week’s show we’ll replay some of that conversation and play the songs which made Kris one of the best known and best loved songwriters in Music City.

Elsewhere we’ll have new songs from Lainey Wilson, Miranda Lambert and Joy Oladokun and share a magical moment from the last Highwayman left, as Willie Nelson covers The Flaming Lips. It’s all there in two hours of country music our way on this week’s Another Country which you can hear from 8 p.m this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

There was a lovely radio moment earlier this week. The great Gary Richardson was filing his last sports reports for The Today Programme and his colleagues put together 50 years of his radio interviews and announcements. The love was pouring out of the wireless and it was a great listen. Like many of the radio greats before him he acknowledged his audience and thanked ‘the listener.’

His thank you was well placed as I recounted the times I have heard his voice alone in my kitchen or in my car or on my earpods. Radio…as the great Terry Wogan knew so well…is a singular experience. We broadcast as one voice and we usually listen alone. I can recall many radio moments over the years where I have cried, laughed, shouted and simply wished it could all happen again immediately. In the grand old days of listening to Radio One on 247 Medium Wave where you’d miss the back announcement if your dad’s car went under a railway bridge there was always the possibility that Tony Blackburn would love a song so much he’d simply play it again. Later in the evening on John Peel I loved the fact that he’d simply play a new significant album all the way through. I still recall that’s how I first heard Joni’s ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns.’

I’m probably not alone in my generation of still loving to hear football commentary on the radio and over the course of recent summers I’ve become addicted to Test Match Special for all its meanderings and whimsy. That’s why, on any given Tuesday, I like to think that I’m in my room playing records to a friend to whom I’ve just said, ‘Listen to this.’ It’s the way we all discovered records we ended up loving. So not only am I going to acknowledge the great radio people here but I need to give a shout out to  my pals: Rod for Heads Hands and Feet,  Alan for Can’t Buy A Thrill and Charlie for that first spin of Prefab Sprout’s Swoon. That’s just the early years; there have been so many more.

This week in a sprit of reciprocation I want to introduce you to some new things from old friends as well as a couple of new artists who are new to us too. You’ll hear wonderful new records from Mindy Smith who is back to her finest form after a long number of years, Bonny Light Horseman, Caylee Hammack and Tenille Townes. We will also remind you of the special talent of KD Lang who will be inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame at this coming weekend’s awards in Edmonton. It’s all in a two hour invitation to my room where I plan to make you fall in love with records to cherish for the rest of your life. You’ll find that room any time from 8 p.m. on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can

Country music is changing. Hugely popular and worming its way into mainstream playlists across the globe it may be a high point for the genre. The tide, if you’ll pardon the metaphor, is still rising. What’s interesting is that as much as it seeks to find new audiences so too, in direct proportion, do new artists seek to find a home in country music.

There are, of course, significant outliers here. The path from country to mainstream pop is a well trodden one. However over the years the many singers and songwriters who have gone from country to pop have always kept a country option open. I fully expect and hope we’ll see a Taylor Swift return to country one day too. Maren Morris may too have declared she no longer wants to sing in the church choir but one day I wouldn’t be surprised to hear another Amen or Hallelujah.

This brings me to my special guests this week who one might seem the unlikeliest new country stars on the block. However Chapel Hart are three woman who have a deep love of country music. As Danica Hart explained to me last week, they love country music because it was the only music they heard where they grew up in Mississippi. From there they went busking in the streets of New Orleans before The Voice came calling and the rest…well that is the story you can hear this week.

Chapel Hart swept into Scotland last week and, as promised when we spoke at C2C in March they came by our studios to record a session and conversation for Another Country. There’s much to talk about which include their close encounters on The Opry, their Dolly answer song and the one they wrote for Loretta too. Other names including Simon Cowell and Darius Rucker come up in conversatio and you can hear their own favourite country songs as well as a great cover version of another famous country song. It’s all in a second hour special in this weeks show.

But that’s not all! We have some great new artists to play you in our first hour with special mentions for Skylar Gudasz, Waylon Wyatt and our new Scottish favourite Rhona McFarlane on this week’s playlist. As well as this we’ll celebrate twenty five years since The Chicks huge Fly album was released. It was a Number One record and contained some of their biggest hits.

Yiou can hear all of this on BBC Sounds or on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can

I had a lovely couple of days off in the south west of Scotland last week. We enjoyed a family get together and on Wednesday the rain held off long enough for a stroll down the High Street. I recommend all of it to you but in between the craft stores and print shops there is that rare gem: the second hand record emporium. Even better news is there is country section which prices everything at £2. I picked up a great haul for under a tenner including Frankie Lane, Marty Robbins and a fab Glen Campbell compilation all on vinyl. Pre loved? Re loved baby.

One of the interesting things about old records is the detail that comes with the sleeve. I’m a real fan of liner notes. Bob Dylan’s streams of unconsciousness and Lowell George’s ruminations were always welcome additions in the old days but my all time favourite was the information gleaned on A Hard Day’s Night. My imagination took off when I read this:

Creating and perfecting completely new compositions for the soundtrack of ‘A HARD DAY’S NIGHT’ presented John and Paul with one of the greatest challenges of their pop-penning career. In the past their song-writing had been done at a more leisurely pace. Now they had a shooting schedule deadline to meet and the entire collection of fresh numbers had to be compiled during a session of concerts in Paris and a now legendary visit to America. To assist their work the two boys had a grand-piano moved into their hotel suite at the George V in Paris.

These days there is no liner notes, no sleeve and most often no physical product. Often as not it takes weeks before I catch up with a physical product and to be honest, I’m increasingly unlikely to fill up my shelves unless I feel I really need to own the record. As I write this it’s Friday morning and I’m in Dublin on a gig day enjoying the releases of Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings‘ Woodland. Both albums are hugely anticipated releases, although Lainey has brought out three in the time it took for Gill and Dave to make one. The other contrast is in style. Both artists are highly respected country artists but neither might be wholly loved by mainstream country fans. Which is why, when people (decreasingly) declare, ‘I don’t like country music,’ I usually reply by asking, ‘Which kind of country music is it you don’t like?’

There is so much to enjoy within the enjoy it’s very possible you can miss out huge swathes of the genre and still declare yourself a country fan. Believe me, there’s certain acts I’ve rarely listened to or only listened enough to know – never again, to be sure I never want to go there again. But of this be sure, this week we’ve been allowed to enjoy two records which will become firm friends for a good while to come. On Another Country this week we will celebrate Whirlwind and Woodland in style and I fully expect to play a lot more in the weeks to come. We will also pay our respects to Mogan Wade, whose new album also came out on Friday last.

Else where we’ll bring you some of that pre loved vinyl from Glen Campbell and showcase songs from some of the great acts about to descend on Paisley for The Mill Town Music Festival this coming weekend. Listen out for Flatland Cavalry, Kaitlin Butts, Kristian Bush and Andrew Combs in a two hour show which starts from five past eight on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening. Join me live if you can.

Perhaps you are reading the headline here and thinking, Alice Randall needs no introduction to me. If so, I totally understand. Chances are you know the finer details of song writing credits over the past 40 years or so or perhaps too you have read her ground breaking parody on Gone With The Wind, The Wind Done Gone or her other books including Rebel Yell? You may also have encountered her academic input via her Chair of Humanities at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University.

However I’m writing this blog about her recent publication and record release of a book and album bearing the title, My Black Country. Alice’s book addresses the question of why African American musicians seem to have been erased from the accepted narrative of how country music came to be. Most of us who have paid any attention to the genre will be aware of the popular story of Country Music’s Big Bang. The Bristol Sessions which brought Victor Recording producer Ralph Peer to Bristol Tennessee to make the first recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.

However, having read Alice’s book I found out that The Bristol Sessions, though significant, may not have been the cradle of country music but more like a kindergarten class. The real beginning, according to Alice, happened decades earlier with The Bohee Brothers, two Canadians of Caribbean descent.  It’s really one of a number of myths Alice Randall’s book attempts to bust as she brings together the real stories of why country music has existed. The exciting thing about the book is it is still wildly enthusiastic about the country music we all know and love but equally tries to point out some of the significant stories that have been quietly ignored over the last 100 years or so.

I talked to Alice about all of this a few weeks back and on this week’s Another Country you will get a chance to hear that conversation as well as the story of her own songwriting career. Alice was the first African American woman to have a country number one record. Tricia Yearwood’s version of XXXs and OOOs not only broke through the colour barrier it became part of Tricia’s repertoire in the most unlikely fashion.

Along with the book Alice has curated and produced an album of songs she cowrote with new versions all sung by black country women including some of the AC’s favourites Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell and Adia Victoria. The album is on John Prine’s famous Oh Boy Records and is a great testament to the strength of Alice’s songwriting.

So this week’s AC will celebrate all of this. You can hear that conversation I recorded with Alice as well as an opening hour where we play some of the significant country records made by African American artists whose stories are an important part of the book. You’ll hear from Ray Charles, Charley Pride, The Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rissi Palmer as well as a track from the artist whose contribution to country music has been so significant this year – Beyonce´.

It’s a special show and you can hear it this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

It’s the morning after. In a strange old week I lost two good friends; one fully human and the other….well, it feels churlish to be so picky.

The full human was a companion from our Saturday morning neighbours running group. George and I were tail-enders. Never able to keep up with the rest of the pack but equally never over bothered either. We set our own standards and enjoyed our own company. There was no ill feeling to the faster runners and no disappointment that the time we took to cover the distance was taking more out of our Saturday than we’d bargained for. Heck, we enjoyed the chat, and over the course of the four or five miles or more we’d sort through most of the problems of the world and return home reasonably satisfied that we’d found most of the answers.

International relations and politics was really only a distraction from the main theme however. It was music we really loved to talk about. George, like me, had an eclectic record collection and equally enjoyed discovering new things. He loved being at gigs and when he found a new artist to champion he would make sure he was there on any occasion they came to town. A few years ago I’d invited him along to one of the AC’s live events during Celtic Connections which featured a set from John Murry. Now, if you will recall, John’s songs are a compelling listen but equally often dark, stark and brutal. George loved all of it. For years afterwords he’d tell me how he’d visited unlikely clubs and bars and become John Murry’s biggest supporter in Glasgow.

If George and I ever came back a little downcast after our Saturday run it was only for one reason. Occasionally a runner from the fast pack would take pity on us and join us on our meandering journey. The outsiders wanted to talk about their work or other important stuff while George and I were only concerned with trying to recall what the last track on the second Buffalo Springfield album was called.

We didn’t keep up the running group as different priorities took over. A few years back George discovered he had cancer and we’d meet up occasionally and talk through how his treatment was going then cut straight back to chatting records again. As I’d not been so well myself I hadn’t managed to see George recently and hoped to catch up as time became available in late summer. Inevitably this was too late and my old pal passed away at home having gone downhill quite quickly over the last week of his life.

The other loss this week has been the death of our dog, Alfie. Strangely George often talked about his own desire to get a new dog and Alfie, our new pup, was coveted by him. Alfie, who first came to us in 2013, died last Sunday after suffering from blindness, pancreatitis and whatever was causing him more discomfort than he could reasonably bear over the last few weeks of his life. He was the family pet who was loved by all of us and by our friends and neighbours too. I knew my identity in our local park was to be the owner of Alf though his true owner and keeper was my wife, Lorraine. For her the dog had been the continuity candidate as our children fled and returned to the nest over the last decade or so. All of them now in their own houses it was left to Alf to be the one who needed looked after, walked, fed and watered but who returned all of that with the unconditional love dogs seem to have in glorious abundance. I’m writing this one day after we said goodbye on a tear filled morning where reason and sound judgment won over sentiment. I say this as the man who wanted to grab the dog and set him free even as the kindly vet issued the last fatal injection.

In a week where bigger stories will naturally take precedence, and worse things will happen I’m only too aware that the death of a family pet is small beer and certainly not in the same league as my dear friend, George. However, like the advice we often hear from our sporting heroes, we can only play what’s in front of us. For me, especially on this grey Monday morning, the passing of pals takes up most of my thoughts. I’m grateful to them both for the happiness they brought. It will be a balm to my soul to play you some songs on the radio. Do join me if you can.

More years ago than I care to remember we visited old friends in California. From their house in Oakland we headed out on an excursion to see some other scenic parts of the Golden State. They said we could, if we so desired, join them on a visit to an old friend who was a real cowboy. Their friend, Joe – the cowboy, was the real thing and had taken over the duties on his family’s ranch which he was steadily converting into an organic farm and rearing the many cattle he had on purer grass and grain. (I”ve probably got these technicalities all wrong already, but go with me here…)

Joe hadn’t long been married and, as he spent all the day out on the fields of the ranch, his wife went into work as a journalist on the local newspaper. The scenario reminded me of an old US sitcom we used to watch as kids called ‘Green Acres’ where Eva Gabor played the Manhattan sophisticate who’d found herself hitched to a handsome hillbilly. Tensions and comedy ensued. Joe’s wife, whose name escapes me now, recounted a great story of how Joe had received a postcard from his old friends on a ranch where he’d spent a year or so learning the ropes (literally) of being a real cowboy. The postcard bore news of how things had developed since Joe left and  included the immortal line, ‘They done up the bunk house real good.’

I realised when we were being shown round the ranch by Joe, whose enthusiasm and knowledge was infectious, that we were hoovering up every detail due to a lifetime of addiction to The Virginian, Rawhide and The High Chaparral. In my lifetime and in the generations that preceded, The Western movie, TV show and book were central to our idea of popular entertainment. The idea of the camp fire, circling the wagons and joining a posse, heck even even a bar fight were all ingrained in our popular imaginations.

So, when Alice Randall and the recent Charley Crockett albums appeared pver the last few months and alluded to cowboy and cowgirl tales we needed no further excuse to disappear down a prairie rabbit hole and put together some classic Western songs. On this week’s show you’ll hear from Sista Strings, Marty Robbins, Beyonce, Tiera Kennedy, Hank Williams and many more.

We’ll also have many new songs – some of which feature cowboys and cowgirls and listen out for some great things from Katie Pruitt, Sam Hunt and Willie Watson.

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Having spent the morning at my local dentist practice which was playing 3 different radio stations in three different rooms it was noticeable how few (if any) new songs would be heard on the various outlets they had tuned in to. Not only that, but the average age of those attending to me was a good 30 years younger…possibly more….than myself. And yet they were listening to songs I’d grown up with in my teens an early twenties. So I draw you attention to the AC where, as well as some fab old faves tonight. we will be bringing you new things with which to fall in love. Hopefully you’ll still be playing them again in a few years time too.

It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds this Tuesday evening. It’s going to be a long ride so buckle in.

Let’s be honest, it’s quite a good week to be a Harris. Apart from the incumbent Democrat Presidential nominee this week’s AC hosts a session and conversation with the very talented Jaimee Harris.

We’ve been playing Jaimee’s music since we discovered the infectious Missing Someone in 2022 from an excellent album which finally surfaced last year called Boomerang Town. It’s one of those records you didn’t want to take off the turntable once you’d put it on and I felt I knew something about Jaimee even before we sat down to have a conversation a few weeks back when she was in Glasgow on tour. The night before our conversation Jaimee had won my nomination for the hardest working person in the music business for performing an excellent solo set at St Luke’s. Without so much as a drink or a pause she went straight into introducing her life partner, Mary Gauthier for whom she played guitar and sang harmony for the rest of a long evening. They both appeared at our studio at nine the next morning and recorded a brilliant session. I was exhausted just thinking about it.

Jaimee is a great foil for Mary, but happily for us this week, she really is a great singer songwriter in her own right. The title track of Boomerang Town centres around the characters often passed over in popular culture but whose dreams are often based around escape. Jaime says, “This is what it’s like to be a part of the post- “‘Born To Run’ Generation. Springsteen’s generation had somewhere to run to. I’m not so sure mine does.” For the characters in these songs, escape isn’t always a matter of geographical distance.

Jaimee’s own experience of addiction and rejection is also at the forefront of the songs on the album and you’ll hear more about the background to these songs in the second part of this week’s show. There’s also the promise of hope in Love Is Gonna Come Again which Jaimee performs in session too. It’s a beautiful thing.

Elsewhere we have new music from  Kacey Musgraves (who has just released an expanded edition of her excellent Deeper Well)  Miranda Lambert (whose album arrives in September) Nick Lowe (who’s reunited with the mad masked Los Strait Jackets) and Alice Randall via Rhiannon Giddens. In early September you’ll hear a fascinating conversation with Alice Randall whose book and album, My Black Country, is the source of The Rhiannon song.

Finally, in a week celebrating the  Harris clan, we couldn’t go on air without including the legend that is Emmylou. It’s two hours of country music our way and we’d love you to join us live on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds from five past eight this Tuesday evening.

Summer is an interesting time for radio. I think back to my first halting attempts at broadcasting in the summer of 2007 and somehow it doesn’t seem that long ago. Then the BBC had just moved to its new HQ at Pacific Quay and the studios failed because they were so new. Now they often fail because they are so old. I guess that tells you we’ve been around a while.

In the summer months I liked hearing messages of people listening in the late evening on holiday or just up late enjoying the summer evenings. There’s not been much chance of enjoying late summer evenings in my part of Scotland, so I hope you’ve had a better time of it wherever you are reading. I often wonder too that, as I leave the studio on a Tuesday evening, what the shape of next week’s show will be. What records are waiting on us that we need to play the following week?

The good news is there are always more records than we can find room to play. This week we’ll hear from the new Sturgill Simpson Project, Johnny Blue Skies. It seems Sturgill is still Sturgill but has found a new moniker for his records and public appearances. I’m not sure I fully understand all of this so we’ve asked our Nashville correspondent, Bill Demain to join us and explain the full story. There’s a lot to speak about too as you too may have heard about another AC favourite causing quite a stir over an excruciating National Anthem performance. We are asking Bill to tell us what’s going on with Ingrid Andress. We’ve already had the interesting Opry appearance of Elle King this year, so, is this us again expecting more from female artist when we’d tolerate much worse from their male counterparts?

As ever though we’re all about the music and you’ll hear great things from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Laura Marling, Andrew Combs and the great news that Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express are back. Chuck announced new music last week and we are so happy there’s a new summertime thing approaching. Chuck’s back in the UK early next year, and God willin’ and the creek don’t rise we’ll have a big catch up. Meanwhile I recommend you book yourself and your pals the best Christmas present ever – some Mission Express tickets.

All this and more in this week’s Another Country. Join me from eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM or BBC Sounds.