Sometimes you’ve got to do it: just get in the car and drive. Last month I organised the rest of the family to get on the plane home and drove back from Italy all alone. I went through the mountains with no better plan than the hope of some scenery and time alone with…MY ENTIRE RECORD COLLECTION!  Well the stuff I’d burned on CD or had in the old 60 gig i pod. ‘Was it worth it Rick?’ I hear you say.

Let me tell you friends that it was so worth it. Sometimes out there in Switzerland you look round and you think they’ve got it made. I once heard a rather complacent Alpine sounding bloke talking to his US host outside the Bluebird Cafe. When asked where he preferred most from all his travel experiences he rather flatly said….home. Well fair enough I suppose. You’ve got your mountains, your lakes and some pretty nice chocolate bars in some funny shapes…..but heck what will you listen to when you’ve settled down for the night in your chalet?  I travelled passed by their glacial waters and under the shadow of their tallest peaks listening to great music and realised I’d take Glasgow with country music rather than all the fine scenery in the world without it any day.

It was there on that long ride I found a few gems I’ll share with you over the next few weeks. Safe to say we’ll move seamlessly through the decades. We’ll have music from Grizzly Bear, First Aid Kit and John Murry. Also new things from older greats – Ry Cooder and Bob Dylan.

In the second hour of the show we’ll reflect on the legacy of Patsy Cline who would have been 80 years old this weekend. Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn and KD Lang will help us out and we’ll hear Tom Jones, The Band Perry and Gretchen Peters talking about how much they love Patsy’s music.

If that’s not worth making an excuse for a long drive through Scotland then I don’t know what is. Join me if you can from five past eight on Friday evening. It’s all on BBC Radio Scotland.