I know I’ve told this tale before, so I won’t bore you again. But driving back from Aberdeen on Saturday I was again reminded of the night I spent at The Music Hall watching Southside Johnny and Graham Parker on, what must be, one of the great all time double bills. You can read the full adventure should you show wish.

On Saturday it wasn’t really about the gig as much as the memory of a glorious return journey rolling past Stonehaven in the sparkling light of a Spring morning and a fishing vessel splitting the waters as it headed out to sea. Somehow the beauty of that new day matched my exhilaration of the night before.

Neither Southside Johnny or Graham Parker’s Rumour could be considered ‘country’ of course, but there’s no doubt that Americana fans of my generation would own their records alongside their Byrds, Burritos and Emmylou albums. As my producer and I talked through this week’s show we both decided it would be good to bring you a little more from Eric Church’s Evangeline Versus The Machine album. I’d quite forgotten, until I looked again, that the record winds up in a great cover of a Tom Waits song. Given that was the only excuse I needed I thought it only fair that on this week’s show I’d follow that up with one of my favourite Tom Waits moments when he teams up with Southside Johnny himself.

There will be more of course. We’ll mark 60 years since Bob Dylan’s record company (CBS) had to release Like A Rolling Stone as a single despite having serious misgivings about its length being inappropriate for radio play. However, in this particular case, the rest is history. One of the greatest recording sessions of all time became one of the greatest single releases of all time and became the bridge between acoustic and electric Dylan that changed so much of what we know about modern music. In keeping with that significant year we’ll bring you two tracks from iconic country records released in 1965.

We’ll also remember a couple of Lefty Frizzell anniversaries play you a John Prine discovery as well as some fine new releases from Kelsey Waldon, Ryan Bingham and Dylan Gossett. It all starts at five past eight this Tueday evening on BBC Radio Scotland FM or BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

I promised myself it wouldn’t happen again, but over the weekend I was pulled back in to an age old habit. Perhaps it was the heat, or just that I found myself in a town where temptation was hard to resist but there I was, inexorably drawn again to the very place where all my resistance was at a premium. In actual fact, it was low to empty.

I’d was revisiting an old favourite old haunt, Guildford in Surrey, on one of the warmest weekends of the year where the south downs nearby and the leafy B roads into West Sussex formed a gorgeous backdrop to my weekend wanderings. ‘If I remember correctly,’I told myself, ‘I can turn up this little alley and there will be a preloved record shop which will have a few gems.’ I wasn’t wrong. Nothing had changed and I began leafing through the racked vinyl in search of lost treasures. I wasn’t disappointed either. I only had to be in the shop for a fifteen minutes or so and I’d found as many as I thought my luggage could hold. A fine haul including a present for my vinyl brother in arms, producer Richard Murdoch. I guessed correctly he didn’t gave a copy to KT Oslin‘s 80’s Ladies and I guessed right.

For myself I found two great Jimmie Rodgers album – one which I hope to share on this week’s show,  Charlie Rich’s Boss Man and a copy of Lyle Lovett’s Pontiac, which to my shame, has not been part of my collection (until now).

But let me draw you attention to a few other classic recordings we’ll be sharing on the AC this week. Listen up for the work of Marijohn Wilkin who was born 105 years ago this week. She had a remarkable career which brought her success in Music City as a songwriter – which as a woman in the fifties was very unusual. We’ll celebrate her songwriting and play you one of the biggest songs of country music which she wrote in the 1970’s.

Elswhere listen out too for fabulous new songs from Chris Stapleton and Miranda Lambert, Mavis Staples singing Frank Ocean, Ian Noe covering Springsteen and something beautiful from the new 7 CD Springsteen set. We do all this in two hours and it all starts at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland. Oh…and will there be any Jimmie Rodgers on this week’s show I hear you ask? Oh yes.

Join me if you can.

Maybe it’s the time of year or the long summer days but on this warm(ish) July evening I find myself down a rabbit hole finding gems, not from long ago, but from performances given only days ago.

I’ve been on summer holidays and slightly removed from events at home so I was keen to catch up on some of the Glastonbury moments and found instead that the truly great Van the Man has been performing some lost gems at his recent outings over in Ireland. Van was on great form at the Dublin show where he essentially ‘supported’ Neil Young and I half wondered whether he’d pulled out more stops on the simple basis of proving he should only ever be the top of any bill.

However I gather Neil himself was on great form too and I love the fact he surprised so many by playing a fairly accessible set list on his recent European outings. The great thing about great artists is they are always able to pull a rabbit from a hat just when you don’t expect it. So on this week’s AC we shall have a great new moment from Van Morrison as well as a great country tinged moment from Neil Young in the twenty first century.

I’ve been hearing great things too about the recent Zach Bryan show in Hyde Park from one of my family who made the trip down to The Smoke just to see the show. If that wasn’t testimony enough one of the newest members of the family, my nearly 3 year old grandson, has been vibing to a Zach Bryan song he can’t get enough of. We’ll have some cool Zach on the show too.

If these legends aren’t enough then we’ll bring you a fabulous new track from country legend Rodney Crowell and remind you of the genius of George Jones, Guy Clark and The Wilburn Brothers. I do love realising that the great artists are great for very good reasons and that, even though they’re slightly less nimble on their feet, their minds and voices are still able to conjure up magic. Chuck Prophet is not of course in the same age bracket as the above legends but he is great and we have reached that time of year when Chuck’s summertime epic just needs to be played. Do tune in and join me live on this week’s show which begins at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland.

Firstly: Thanks you for so many kind messages of love for my friend Jim Prime. I’ll spend longer talking about Jim at a future date but for now, we at DB are all so grateful for the love you have shown in texts, mails and posts. I’ll be playing a track in memory of Jim on this week’s show.

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As I write this week’s blog I’m on the loveliest of journeys, a summer train. I think I first fell for the joy of this particular outing as a young teenager travelling with a friend for the first time without parents or grandparents. I’d once had a long train journey with my grandfather which had turned awkward as I started to resent the hot, stuffy train and behaved rather like the teenager I was about to become. Inevitably he was kind and consoling and, as he was my best, best friend this proved to be a matter of some regret for many years after until I finally dealt with it in a song…always the best way.

The later journey with my schooldays friend saw us taking a train from London Victoria out to Sevenoaks in Kent for the start of a holiday. It was July and travelling out through the suburbs to the commuter belt and seeing the cars parked at the station for the office workers to start their journey to the city was a whole new experience to two young lads from Angus who’d never been out in the world.  We’d missed the rush hour so this mid morning train was as quiet as an empty church as it pulled up to each little stop and doors swung open to empty platforms. Somehow the heat seemed more intense when we were stationery and the summer seeped in through the open windows.

Later on I’d read Edward Thomas’s Adlestrop:

Over last weekend I was hovering at the bar at a birthday party when a mutual friend reintroduced me to someone I hadn’t seen for the best part of fifty years. ‘When last we met,’ he began ‘ you told me you didn’t like country music.’ It was true I confessed. ‘I was young and was very, very stupid. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like it, I just had only heard bad examples and never got close to the good stuff.’

It’s a common enough story. Willy Vlautin told me much the same thing when we first met. He associated country music with the red-neck guys he despised in his local scene until his brother introduced him to Willy Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger or Shotgun Willie albums.

I was reminded a little of this as my youngest son is currently residing in the house before he moves into his new pad. We were heading to The Highlands ten years ago for our October holiday and such was the accumulation of luggage and children that we took two cars. At one point my son laughed at his sisters having to share the ride in my car. ‘Ha ha’ he scoffed, ‘Country music for three hours.’ In actual facts the cars got swapped and reluctantly he accompanied me and became my CD opener and general helper as I sifted through a pile of new releases. (In these days we got sent a pile each week) I remember his vague sarcasm (even at the age of fourteen) as he began examining the Dierks Bentley offering. Even his name seemed like a weird hybrid sports car and certainly didn’t register as a serious artist to the young lad. As the music progressed however I could detect a certain respect without ever admitting it might be a record he would play himself. Cut to ten years later and I’m at home in Glasgow while he’s somewhere in London sending me a George Jones playlist. You don’t sneer when you get the good stuff.

The album we were gently enjoying all thise years back was probably Riser. The title track alone is worth the purchase money. Since then I’ve followed Dierks’s career with interest as he’s veered between the the broodier songs from the album that succeeded that album, Black, to his love of Bluegrass and his enjoyment of cornball country pop songs. The great thing about Dierks music is if you don’t love a song then you simply fast forward to the next track because you’ll probably find one to melt your heart sooner or later.

In the second hour of this week’s AC we will play lots of Dierks Bentley classics punctuated by a conversation with the man himself we recorded on the first day of C2C back in March. We’ll talk about songs, collaborations and his love of bluegrass over a hugely successful twenty five year career. It’s a conversation you can hear from eight o’clock this coming Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

It was one of my early visits to Nashville and for reasons that soon became very clear there was no room at the (Holiday) Inn. There was no room in any Inn if truth be told and the best option was a week’s stay out at the airport a short drive out from downtown. Airport hotels are probably the most soulless places on earth and this one was no different. Once I’d finished whatever I had on that day I’d head back along the freeway to my home from home and decide that the best way to dine alone was to join the other loners at the sports bar and try my luck there with the menu. I found a good seat and soon enough I joined with the Basketball boys watching the playoffs and made friends with a fellow traveller who explained what to look out for. ‘It’s all about the final quarter,’ he told me. ‘That can go on for ever. It doesn’t kick on until then. See, the thing is…’ he confided, ‘It’s all about this.’ His thumb and middle finer rubbed almost snapping together. ‘Basketball, football, baseball…you name it, it’s all about the money.’

I didn’t bring up the music business as I’m pretty sure he’d have had the same take away. But it was good to feel part of the conversation and offer my occasional tuppence worth on how it was much the same wherever you go. It was probably my bar friend who explained why I was having to stay out there in the first place. Anyone I spoke to said the same thing. ‘Fan Fair.’

It turned out, that in my naivety, I’d picked CMA week to arrive in country music’s capital. Until 2004 this gathering of the country clans had been called Fan Fair and the regulars Tennesseeans still used the term. I didn’t really pay too much attention to what it all was as I had other song writing duties on my mind but I was aware that this was a big deal. It turned out that the Fan Fair term had now been superseded by the more all embracing CMA Fest. Essentially the same idea, CMA week encouraged country music fans to come to the city and see, at close quarters, most of their favourite artists who would perform in small and large venues in and around downtown. The last time I was in Nashville during CMA Fest all of Broadway had been closed off in anticipation of an Alan Jackson show that was to be one of the closing events of the long weekend.

The festival (as Fan Fair or under its new name) has been around since 1972 and in the early days it even featured short-term Nashville resident, Paul McCartney and (in the same year) the final performance of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner. These days you’d expect to see any country act with an album to promote in or around the city. Our man in town, Bill Demain has seen the festival grow and change at first hand and we thought we’d get him to come and give us a sense of the atmosphere at this year’s celebration. Bill will join us in the second hour of this week’s show.

Apart from that we have new music from exciting Oklahoma singer songwriter Ken Pomeroy, Cam, Jackson Dean and so much more. As ever we’re on air This Tuesday evening from eight on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

It’s funny how many times I’ve heard the name, Charlie Worsham mentioned. People, country people it seems all love Charlie Worsham. It’s not difficult to see why. Having played his music over a long number of years, intentionally or unintentionally, (I’ll explain that later) it was a joy to be sitting chatting to the man himself a couple of months ago in Glasgow.

On that day Charlie had been a busy fellow. He’d crossed the Atlantic, completed a soundcheck for that evening’s headline act and slipped in a solo performance at King Tut’s in the afternoon. To look at Charlie’s eternally youthful complexion and how relaxed and generally chipper he seemed you could imagine another couple of musical commitments before bedtime wouldn’t phase him. Later on, as part of Dierks Bentley’s brilliant band he played beautiful guitar and mandolin and smiled and laughed as Dierks did his level best to trip up his sidemen…all in the best possible taste.

Charlie Worsham spends so much time making other people’s music sound better it seems he barely gets time to make his own music. However this C2C he has taken the time to play some of his own songs at a fringe event in King Tuts and the AC has been given access to that gig from which we’ll play a few tracks on this week’s show. We’ll also have a sneak preview of songs which will be part of the next Charlie solo album. It’s one I’m looking forward to hugely as Charlie’s own voice has a great way of welcoming you in and doing what great country artists always do so well: telling you a story.

So, let me explain that ‘unintentional’ comment. I realise we probably play Charlie’s guitar, mandolin, dobro or banjo on a very regular basis. His playing has graced so many of our favourite tracks of the last ten years and more. Charlie has contributed so much to other artists’ records it’s nice to see some of these acts returning the favour. If you need a quick primer try the Luke Combs duet on Learning To Pray – a song from Charlie’s debut record album. But it’s Charlie’s playing that has made him everyone’s favourite picker. You can hear that picking on records by Eric Church, Kip Moore, Lainey Wilson, Kacey Musgraves and many more. Arriving in Tennessee from Mississippi he played live at The Opry aged 12 and has been in studios or on the road ever since.

On this week’s AC we have given over hour two of the show to a Charlie Worsham hour. You’ll hear his songs and the songs he’s played on as well as cuts from that gig in King Tuts. As well as that you’ll hear Charlie in conversation with me backstage at C2C and like the Nashville community, you’ll find yourself falling in love with Charlie. It alls starts this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland. Do join me if you can.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing a clear out. In truth it’s my 18 monthly CD cull with the exception that this year I’m putting all the CD’s back in proper alphabetical order.

I told my barber – an avid record collector himself – about all of this and he nodded sagely before explaining that he likes to do the same. ‘I mean, it’s not over complicated, Ricky,’ he confided, ‘just alphabetical for the artist then each album in chronological order.’ I realised I still had some way to go.

One of the most interesting aspects of ‘the cull’ as I like to call it is what makes a keeper and what propels the rejected LP towards my local Marie Curie shop. (if you want to double your CD collection head over to Shawlands now). I realised quite early on that there were many albums I really didn’t know at all. Perhaps I played one song on the radio or kept it because I thought I might return to listening, but ten or fifteen years on, I never have. It’s not that I don’t want to hear that record again, it’s just that, well…given the time we’ve all got on this planet it’s really not possible to listen to everything. Taking into account also we now live as a couple in a house made for a family of six, we shouldn’t really be filling it up any more with unwanted clutter. It’s not the first cull we’ve completed either, and yet somehow we have a shelf full of cookery books despite a very clear memory I hold of donating a car-boot’s worth of the dam things a few years back. Are they breeding?

The interesting question however is not really about what you throw out but what is the criteria for a ‘keeper?’ Almost 95% of that is nostalgia and sentiment. Even though the CD as a product is only 40 odd years old certain selections pull on my heartstrings and I can still remember where and why I bought them. So the task of the cull took a little longer as I wandered back and forward to the CD player to try to work out if I still loved certain records. In all honesty I was a little taken aback with some albums I could have sworn were favourites, which, as they spun round or crunched their digits or whatever failed to bring the expected smile across my face. I daren’t say which of these fell into this category but I will admit that my own listening preferences have changed. I’m less tolerant of the ‘original for originality’s sake’ recording and probably keener on the song that speaks to me despite the lack of exceptional studio wizardry. Somehow, in this phase of life (old I guess you would say) in my own writing and in other people’s I’m drawn closer and closer to  the simplicity of a song. Perhaps, as some have often asked me, I’m more influenced by country music than I ever thought possible.

However I keep a playlist on my Spotify of all that I hear and love that falls outside Americana or Country and often things come in that demand a listen. The inevitable will happen: the clear space on the shelf will disappear and some new additions will take up the slack awaiting another cull a couple of years down the line. If they make that, they can be sure they’ll join the keepers.

There’s a few lovely things on this week’s show that are certainly in my keepers list. We have a great Neil Young selection from a listener and we also mark what would have been Levon Helm’s 85th Birthday as well as cleberating the great John Fogerty’s 80th with a return to the chat we had a couple of years back. We hope you enjoyed our Mary Chapin Carpenter hour last week as we will also have a little bonus from that session.

All of this is available from five past eight on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening. Do join me live if you can.

There’s always been talk of solo female artist from the eighties and nineties exemplifying a time when country music was in a golden period. It’s not hard to see why. Just think of some of the great names who emerged in that glorious decade: Roseanne Cash, Nanci Griffith, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Suzy Boguss, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Shania…the Chicks. (heck, feel free to add your own names in here)

I think these are all artists we’ve played regularly on the AC over the many years we’ve been on air. Some of them were also part of that ‘new country’ movement which included singers like Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Gillian Welch and Rodney Crowell. Something ‘real’ was going on which made a connection with people like me who hadn’t paid close attention up until that point to what was coming out of Nashville.

There’s one name which I haven’t included in that long list which brings me to the very special guest joining me on this week’s show. Mary Chapin Carpenter is another artist who emerged in that creative period whose songs struck a chord in their home country but also made a mark with UK audiences who have remained smitten by the music. 

Mary Chapin has turned the focus back on to her own life for her first new solo album in some years. Intriguingly it’s not the only record to be released this year with her name attached. Earlier in the year her collaboration with two greats of Scottish folk music, Karine Polwart and Julie Fowlis also came out. The three artists hooked up at Celtic Connections at some point and this led to a collaboration that has already toured these islands.

We are very excited to welcome Mary Chapin to PQ’s Studio One where we have hosted so many great sessions over the years. She will join us to sing acoustic versions of songs from the new album, Personal History as well as picking some intriguing country records for us to play. I do believe she may well also sing a cover version of a personal favourite too. All will be revealed on this week’s very special show.

We’ll also have some significant anniversaries, great new tracks and another personal Neil Young story and country selection from one of our regular listeners. Don’t forget I want to hear your own Neil country picks and share your stories. The best way to tell me is via email: rickyross@bbc.co.uk

Do join me for this very special AC night from eight P.M. on BBCSounds or BBC Radio Scotland.

Today is Lorraine, my wife’s birthday. I’m always slightly jealous as hers, invariably, falls on one of the loveliest days of the year. Mid May in Scotland is usually the best weather we can hope for and this year has not disappointed.  My arrival, on the other hand, came three days before Christmas and is easily submerged into other festive celebrations.

We have enjoyed a few great birthday days in various locations and situations but one particular birthday will never be forgotten. We were on tour in 1989 and shortly before the tour began the tragedy at Hillsborough in Sheffield took place. Within  a few weeks of that awful day we found ourselves on tour in Liverpool where, before any internet, bundles of letters and notes were left for us at the stage door of the Royal Court Theatre. The letters contained stories of family and friends who’d been caught up in the disaster. In some cases we were told of young men who had tickets for our show but had been killed in the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday’s football ground. Inevitably we knew we had to take a moment to remember those lost lives and grieving families during the show.

I’m told we played a song called Take Me To The Place which is essentially a reworking of Abide With Me and during that song and even before the audience threw large bunches of flowers on to the front of the stage.  As the song closed the Liverpool voices took over and 2,000 people sang You’ll Never Walk Alone back to us. I turned round to the band to get the gig going again as, by now, I felt so emotionally exhausted by the strength of love and sorrow in the room that we needed to somehow change the mood in some way. Needless to say the band were equally frozen in grief and it took all our effort to bring the gig back to some kind of normal order. There was, however, nothing normal about that night. The gig seemed to form a bond between Deacon Blue and the Liverpool audience that has remained very special since that time. A couple of days later we visited Sheffield and there Lorraine and I were asked to visit a young man (who later died) who was in a coma in the local hospital.

36 years on memories of a unique evening still resonate. For the people of the city however insult was added to injury in the months and years following as blame was aimed at supporters and responsibility for the deaths of the victims had to be dragged out of the Police and those responsible for ensuring the safety of football fans. The pain still lingers and to the city’s credit, those victims and their families are never forgotten and, only a few weeks ago, tributes were again made as the football club paid tribute to the Ninety Seven. So many were so young and in those years in between 1989 and 2025 so many hard birthdays have been endured by those who loved them.

Liverpool is, of course, Britain’s very own music city. So much of what we now revere about pop music was formed in and around Merseyside. In America’s Music City, Nashville, there is still a deep love of everything Beatles related. I’m pleased to say that one of the people who loves that music more than anyone is our Nashville correspondent, Bill DeMain who wil be joining me on this week’s radio show. Expect Bill to tell you some stories about songs you know and love as well as a nod to events in and around Music Row. We’ll be on air from eight on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.