I often say that certainly smells remind me of happiness. I think a certain shop in Greenhills Mall in Nashville used to spray around so much scent that any hint of it anywhere in the world made me think of Music City. There’s another thing; it’s the opening chords to Jesus Take The Wheel, Carrie Underwood’s massive song from 2005 which was all over country radio when I first visited there. Put the two things together and you might never get me back. And what do I think of when I think of these memories? I think of happiness and how much I loved being in the city of so many songwriters and musicians, the city I’d always dreamed of visiting. Heck, way back in 1985, I signed a publishing deal to ATV Songs whose embossed note paper declared they had offices in London, LA, New York and Nashville. It was Nashville that carried the greatest allure.
When I finally got there (two music publishing deals later) all I wanted to do was drive around and listen to the radio. The radio didn’t disappoint, though it took me a while to find out what was what there was one constant factor; Carrie Underwood’s So Small was on heavy rotation and I fell for all of it. From there it was an easy step to catch up with Carrie. She had exploded onto the Country community two years previously after an American Idol series where she established herself as America’s sweetheart and simultaneously reminded the mainstream pop audience that country was pop music for any good Texas girl.
Carrie had the wisdom and good luck to tap into some of the best of the city’s songwriting community.Brett James, Luke Laird, Hilary Lindsay, Gordie Sampson and in a cameo appearance at the end of that first album one Carrie Underwood. Since then Carrie has become a regular co-writer on her own songs and surpassed anything she’d set out to do on American Idol. So far she has picked up Seven Grammy Awards, seventeen Billboard Music Awards, eleven Academy of Country Music Awards, eight American Music Awards, five CMAs, amongst and as a songwriter, she has also received a Golden Globe Award nomination and won ten BMI awards. She’s still on 32 years old!
On Tuesday night you’ll not be surprised to learn that we devote our first hour to Carrie Underwood. We talk about the excellent new album, Storyteller (just out last Friday), we will hear how excited she is to be coming to Scotland for the first time and talk about her inspiration for those remarkable songs we have loved over the last 10 years. She’s one of the biggest country stars on the planet and she might well go on to surpass the achievements of the many legends who inspired her. Hear her first in-depth radio conversation about this new record on this Tuesday evening’s Another Country.
As well as this we will celebrate the return of Randy Newman to these parts, play you some excellent new music from Frankie Lee, Sarah Cracknell as well as Dave Rawlings Machine, about whom I will share with you a great family story. We do all of this in hours, you know.
Join us from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.
twitter: @rickyaross @richardpmurdoch @bbcradioscotland
