Here’s the thing. There’s so much music floating around my head I need to offload
it somewhere. Roll on Tuesday night. Another Country has a new night and once more we get some well worn jeans and a plaid shirt round the Radio Scotland studios.
My producer, Richard Murdoch, and myself have been sending excited e mails to each other and doing some solid preparation for an extended eight week run of programmes. Thanks to a number of great artists coming into Glasgow over the last few weeks we have a great list of guests but hey, you can read all that on the main page. What have you been up to Ricky my old friend I hear you ask?
In October I was actually on my way to Nashville but the day until I suffered my first ‘rock n roll bizarre gardening accident’ involving a falling vase, a large head (mine) and a misplaced hand. The net result was a stookie and 5 weeks of enforced down-time. As soon as I got the plaster off I was eased into a tour bus with the other Blue Deacons and headed out across the UK as guest of Simple Minds. This was great fun. I have also spent some time in Sweden song-writing with the great Tobias Froberg.
However I’d like to thank Dawn Munro and Victoria McArthur from BBC Scotland for their radio-therapy. Just when I thought I was no use to man nor beast and was finding it difficult to complete the simplest of tasks, they caught me up in a documentary about the late Joan Eardley. It was a real joy to listen to stories of people who knew Joan and spend a lot of time just looking at paintings.
Just to get things started for the dialogue we will no doubt have during the shows, here’s a list of recent albums and artist I’ve been enjoying: If you don’t know them I’m sure you’ll become familiar with some of them over the next few weeks. Feel free to weigh in with some of your own recent faves.
J Tillman – Vacilando Territory Blues, Bon Iver – Blood Bank, The Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion, Wood Pigeon – Songbook,
I watched Once and have to say the songs on the soundtrack by Glem Hansard and Marketa Irglova are beautiful. The Devon Sproule and Iron and Wine recent albums still give me plenty of joy. There’s lots of good music from this side of the water too but that’s another show!
oh…. and George Jones. He just gets better with every listen.
More soon
