There was no truer aphorism in Rock n Roll than when Charlie Watts described a significant this life with the Rolling Stones as ‘”Twenty years of hanging around.’ Sometimes all we seem to do is wait. I can’t believe the worst months of the winter have come and gone since we first announced Country To Country coming to Scotland. Looking back it seems it was most of Autumn too.
Just to get things straight this is a very exciting weekend for Country Music. As you know we’re not always over excited about everything emanating from Music Row – on the grounds that it doesn’t really fit what we would understand as Country Music. But I’ve gone on record as saying that if I’d been asked to pick a line up of contemporary Country artists it would look very like the line up we have over this coming weekend.
On Friday you can hear Sam Hunt, Little Big Town and then witness the first ever Scottish appearance for Carrie Underwood. Earlier that day we will be hosting an up close and personal conversation with Little Big Town and Carrie, the highlights of which we will broadcast on Saturday evening as an extra special AC. (I know…we’re breaking all the rules here and we’re loving it)….On Saturday we welcome Andrew Combs, Chris Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves and Eric Church. In the afternoon we will be joined by Eric in the BBC foyer for another close encounter which will become the main part of our second C2C show to be broadcast this Sunday evening. Both these weekend specials go out at the normal AC time of 9 p.m. You getting the picture? It’s a big weekend…..
If you are lucky enough to be at the gigs in the Armadillo itself you’ll see and hear me as I’m introducing all the artists appearing at the festival. The final night is going to be very special too. On stage Thomas Rhett, Ashley Monroe, Dwight Yoakam and Miranda Lambert. In that one night you have some of the finest country voices gathered together. We hope to catch up with one or two of the acts backstage in the course of the weekend too.
Is that all, I hear you say? Well, not quite. As part of C2C, BBC Radio 2 have again commissioned a pop-up country station which starts broadcasting this Thursday. If you don’t get all of it tune in for my Country Jukebox from 11pm. You can find it on your DAB, online or on the BBC Radio App.
But don’t let all this detail put you off just enjoy the music and celebrate the fact that the music we Scots folks took over to Tennessee all these years ago is coming home…..in style.
Join me this Tuesday for the our preview show from 9 pm on BBC Radio Scotland if you can.
