The Best Session…Ever

Have you ever been in someone elses’s recording session? I haven’t done a whole load of hanging around other studios. I have occasionally been in a control room which wasn’t my own. Good friends Gary and Al once told me about being invited – yes invited – to attend Joni Mitchell’s orchestral sessions at Air for her “Both Sides Now” project. As recording artists themselves they knew when to talk and when to smile , but they were still smiling when they told me the story a few years later.

I can’t boast anything like that but a few weeks ago my mouth was made to fall open as Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings took command of Audio Productions Studio in Nashville. As I sat in the control room hearing the loveliest sound two humans can make with 2 guitars and voices I turned to the engineer to give him the thumbs up. It was then I saw the face of a man who was beginning to question his own identity. He too was amazed at the sound but trying to figure out how it could be so good around the cheapest microphone in the whole building. You see…sometimes talent wins the day.

Gill and Dave were brilliant and we then talked for ages about the new record, their many collaborations and their live plans which include a tour with Buffalo Springfield. You can hear all of that on Friday as we are devoting our two hours to the music of Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings. And yes……in case you want to know. No hyperbole but I think it was the best session ever.

We will also pause to remember this man.

As I read the news of Clarence Clemons’ death here on my laptop on Sunday morning I did feel my whole life passing before me. Hearing his solo on Jungleland was a formative moment in my teenage life. I remember playing it extra loud in the front room on a Saturday to my friend Callum Laird and being embarrassed at my dad doing the thing I would now do too – interrupting the song and telling me to turn it down! We will take time to play you a significant Clarence moment on Friday. Thanks for the music Big Man.

After that….. I’m taking a few weeks off. Deacon Blue are hitting the road over the summer and I start back with the now 2 hour Sunday Morning show in late July. I’ll try to play some great music for you all then too. In the meantime do enjoy your summer.