It’s the morning after. In a strange old week I lost two good friends; one fully human and the other….well, it feels churlish to be so picky.

The full human was a companion from our Saturday morning neighbours running group. George and I were tail-enders. Never able to keep up with the rest of the pack but equally never over bothered either. We set our own standards and enjoyed our own company. There was no ill feeling to the faster runners and no disappointment that the time we took to cover the distance was taking more out of our Saturday than we’d bargained for. Heck, we enjoyed the chat, and over the course of the four or five miles or more we’d sort through most of the problems of the world and return home reasonably satisfied that we’d found most of the answers.

International relations and politics was really only a distraction from the main theme however. It was music we really loved to talk about. George, like me, had an eclectic record collection and equally enjoyed discovering new things. He loved being at gigs and when he found a new artist to champion he would make sure he was there on any occasion they came to town. A few years ago I’d invited him along to one of the AC’s live events during Celtic Connections which featured a set from John Murry. Now, if you will recall, John’s songs are a compelling listen but equally often dark, stark and brutal. George loved all of it. For years afterwords he’d tell me how he’d visited unlikely clubs and bars and become John Murry’s biggest supporter in Glasgow.

If George and I ever came back a little downcast after our Saturday run it was only for one reason. Occasionally a runner from the fast pack would take pity on us and join us on our meandering journey. The outsiders wanted to talk about their work or other important stuff while George and I were only concerned with trying to recall what the last track on the second Buffalo Springfield album was called.

We didn’t keep up the running group as different priorities took over. A few years back George discovered he had cancer and we’d meet up occasionally and talk through how his treatment was going then cut straight back to chatting records again. As I’d not been so well myself I hadn’t managed to see George recently and hoped to catch up as time became available in late summer. Inevitably this was too late and my old pal passed away at home having gone downhill quite quickly over the last week of his life.

The other loss this week has been the death of our dog, Alfie. Strangely George often talked about his own desire to get a new dog and Alfie, our new pup, was coveted by him. Alfie, who first came to us in 2013, died last Sunday after suffering from blindness, pancreatitis and whatever was causing him more discomfort than he could reasonably bear over the last few weeks of his life. He was the family pet who was loved by all of us and by our friends and neighbours too. I knew my identity in our local park was to be the owner of Alf though his true owner and keeper was my wife, Lorraine. For her the dog had been the continuity candidate as our children fled and returned to the nest over the last decade or so. All of them now in their own houses it was left to Alf to be the one who needed looked after, walked, fed and watered but who returned all of that with the unconditional love dogs seem to have in glorious abundance. I’m writing this one day after we said goodbye on a tear filled morning where reason and sound judgment won over sentiment. I say this as the man who wanted to grab the dog and set him free even as the kindly vet issued the last fatal injection.

In a week where bigger stories will naturally take precedence, and worse things will happen I’m only too aware that the death of a family pet is small beer and certainly not in the same league as my dear friend, George. However, like the advice we often hear from our sporting heroes, we can only play what’s in front of us. For me, especially on this grey Monday morning, the passing of pals takes up most of my thoughts. I’m grateful to them both for the happiness they brought. It will be a balm to my soul to play you some songs on the radio. Do join me if you can.

More years ago than I care to remember we visited old friends in California. From their house in Oakland we headed out on an excursion to see some other scenic parts of the Golden State. They said we could, if we so desired, join them on a visit to an old friend who was a real cowboy. Their friend, Joe – the cowboy, was the real thing and had taken over the duties on his family’s ranch which he was steadily converting into an organic farm and rearing the many cattle he had on purer grass and grain. (I”ve probably got these technicalities all wrong already, but go with me here…)

Joe hadn’t long been married and, as he spent all the day out on the fields of the ranch, his wife went into work as a journalist on the local newspaper. The scenario reminded me of an old US sitcom we used to watch as kids called ‘Green Acres’ where Eva Gabor played the Manhattan sophisticate who’d found herself hitched to a handsome hillbilly. Tensions and comedy ensued. Joe’s wife, whose name escapes me now, recounted a great story of how Joe had received a postcard from his old friends on a ranch where he’d spent a year or so learning the ropes (literally) of being a real cowboy. The postcard bore news of how things had developed since Joe left and  included the immortal line, ‘They done up the bunk house real good.’

I realised when we were being shown round the ranch by Joe, whose enthusiasm and knowledge was infectious, that we were hoovering up every detail due to a lifetime of addiction to The Virginian, Rawhide and The High Chaparral. In my lifetime and in the generations that preceded, The Western movie, TV show and book were central to our idea of popular entertainment. The idea of the camp fire, circling the wagons and joining a posse, heck even even a bar fight were all ingrained in our popular imaginations.

So, when Alice Randall and the recent Charley Crockett albums appeared pver the last few months and alluded to cowboy and cowgirl tales we needed no further excuse to disappear down a prairie rabbit hole and put together some classic Western songs. On this week’s show you’ll hear from Sista Strings, Marty Robbins, Beyonce, Tiera Kennedy, Hank Williams and many more.

We’ll also have many new songs – some of which feature cowboys and cowgirls and listen out for some great things from Katie Pruitt, Sam Hunt and Willie Watson.

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Having spent the morning at my local dentist practice which was playing 3 different radio stations in three different rooms it was noticeable how few (if any) new songs would be heard on the various outlets they had tuned in to. Not only that, but the average age of those attending to me was a good 30 years younger…possibly more….than myself. And yet they were listening to songs I’d grown up with in my teens an early twenties. So I draw you attention to the AC where, as well as some fab old faves tonight. we will be bringing you new things with which to fall in love. Hopefully you’ll still be playing them again in a few years time too.

It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds this Tuesday evening. It’s going to be a long ride so buckle in.

Let’s be honest, it’s quite a good week to be a Harris. Apart from the incumbent Democrat Presidential nominee this week’s AC hosts a session and conversation with the very talented Jaimee Harris.

We’ve been playing Jaimee’s music since we discovered the infectious Missing Someone in 2022 from an excellent album which finally surfaced last year called Boomerang Town. It’s one of those records you didn’t want to take off the turntable once you’d put it on and I felt I knew something about Jaimee even before we sat down to have a conversation a few weeks back when she was in Glasgow on tour. The night before our conversation Jaimee had won my nomination for the hardest working person in the music business for performing an excellent solo set at St Luke’s. Without so much as a drink or a pause she went straight into introducing her life partner, Mary Gauthier for whom she played guitar and sang harmony for the rest of a long evening. They both appeared at our studio at nine the next morning and recorded a brilliant session. I was exhausted just thinking about it.

Jaimee is a great foil for Mary, but happily for us this week, she really is a great singer songwriter in her own right. The title track of Boomerang Town centres around the characters often passed over in popular culture but whose dreams are often based around escape. Jaime says, “This is what it’s like to be a part of the post- “‘Born To Run’ Generation. Springsteen’s generation had somewhere to run to. I’m not so sure mine does.” For the characters in these songs, escape isn’t always a matter of geographical distance.

Jaimee’s own experience of addiction and rejection is also at the forefront of the songs on the album and you’ll hear more about the background to these songs in the second part of this week’s show. There’s also the promise of hope in Love Is Gonna Come Again which Jaimee performs in session too. It’s a beautiful thing.

Elsewhere we have new music from  Kacey Musgraves (who has just released an expanded edition of her excellent Deeper Well)  Miranda Lambert (whose album arrives in September) Nick Lowe (who’s reunited with the mad masked Los Strait Jackets) and Alice Randall via Rhiannon Giddens. In early September you’ll hear a fascinating conversation with Alice Randall whose book and album, My Black Country, is the source of The Rhiannon song.

Finally, in a week celebrating the  Harris clan, we couldn’t go on air without including the legend that is Emmylou. It’s two hours of country music our way and we’d love you to join us live on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds from five past eight this Tuesday evening.

Summer is an interesting time for radio. I think back to my first halting attempts at broadcasting in the summer of 2007 and somehow it doesn’t seem that long ago. Then the BBC had just moved to its new HQ at Pacific Quay and the studios failed because they were so new. Now they often fail because they are so old. I guess that tells you we’ve been around a while.

In the summer months I liked hearing messages of people listening in the late evening on holiday or just up late enjoying the summer evenings. There’s not been much chance of enjoying late summer evenings in my part of Scotland, so I hope you’ve had a better time of it wherever you are reading. I often wonder too that, as I leave the studio on a Tuesday evening, what the shape of next week’s show will be. What records are waiting on us that we need to play the following week?

The good news is there are always more records than we can find room to play. This week we’ll hear from the new Sturgill Simpson Project, Johnny Blue Skies. It seems Sturgill is still Sturgill but has found a new moniker for his records and public appearances. I’m not sure I fully understand all of this so we’ve asked our Nashville correspondent, Bill Demain to join us and explain the full story. There’s a lot to speak about too as you too may have heard about another AC favourite causing quite a stir over an excruciating National Anthem performance. We are asking Bill to tell us what’s going on with Ingrid Andress. We’ve already had the interesting Opry appearance of Elle King this year, so, is this us again expecting more from female artist when we’d tolerate much worse from their male counterparts?

As ever though we’re all about the music and you’ll hear great things from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Laura Marling, Andrew Combs and the great news that Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express are back. Chuck announced new music last week and we are so happy there’s a new summertime thing approaching. Chuck’s back in the UK early next year, and God willin’ and the creek don’t rise we’ll have a big catch up. Meanwhile I recommend you book yourself and your pals the best Christmas present ever – some Mission Express tickets.

All this and more in this week’s Another Country. Join me from eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM or BBC Sounds.

It’s early July and for once, in these unpredictable meteorological times, there’s been nearly 24 hours of sunshine. I’m celebrating as I watch the dark clouds gather from my studio window. Many of you will, no doubt, be taking a chance to slip away on summer holidays and some of you might still be taking your radios along for the ride. I still recall an early teenage holiday with my parents which I went without my older sister coming. Feeling a bit lonely, and slightly spooked by reading a book of ghost stories I took comfort from listening to Radio 1 in my hotel room and found, like Nanci Griffith many years later, that the radio can be a good friend.

This blog is here to highlight the next two shows on the AC as I’m off travelling myself next week and have left a wonderful special featuring a conversation with Willy Vlautin about his latest novel, The Horse, and this includes Willy singing some songs from the book as well as an hour of records mentioned in the book. The Horse may well turn out to be my favourite Willy novel yet and it brings together so many themes that have been present in Willy’s songs and prose writing. Centred around a song writer and a horse – there have been so many in and around Willy’s work – it’s set in the landscape Willy knows so well, the north west of America.

This week’s show also features a very special guest too. Brad Paisley is a man from a great country tradition of genius guitar pickers who also happen to be great singers and song writers. In the Good Country blog the other day I saw that they had put Brad into the lineage of Glen Campbell and Vince Gill and for good measure I’m going to play another great picker to set up the show – the one and only Ricky Skaggs. Brad will be picking three country songs he loves and each one is a mini masterpiece.

We’ll aslo throw the spotlight onto some new talent from Scotland as we play Rhona Macfarlane who captures the mood with a song called July Rain. We think we’ll grow to love Rhona’s music as she’s a special talent. Listen out too for new songs from Miranda Lambert, Willie Watson and my good friend Hannah White who is coming up to Scotland later in the year. We’ll have new songs too from our old buddy Rob Vincent whose new album came out last week. As ever it’s two hours of country music – our way and we’d love you to join us . We’re on air from 8 p.m. on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland.

I’m writing this looking over the a little market town in the Garden of England. The sun is shining and the towers of Canterbury Cathedral are bathing in the warmth of a perfect summer’s day. As we flew out of Glasgow yesterday I was reminded of days gone by when the school term would end and we’d pack the car or go to the airport to start a family holiday. I must admit to a moment of nostalgia as I looked at groups of happy families setting off on foreign adventures.

I hope a few of you are getting a chance to enjoy some time off this summer and perhaps you may even be listening in to the AC when you’re on your travels. If so, I hope we can give you some magical musical moments you might want to take home and enjoy when the holidays are over. This week we reach our final C2C session and interview. Our special guests this week are Restless Road. They are three young men,  Zach Beeken, Garrett Nichols, and Colton Pack now based in Nashville Tennessee who came together on The X Factor US TV show. Like so many of the artists at C2C who we’ve spoke to over the last few months the fame factory was a big part of their story (Simon Cowell was the man who suggested the three get together) and like many of the acts, Restless Road didn’t go on to win the competition. Significantly that ‘failure’ was no handicap to growing their career. They signed a record deal with Sony Nashville and their feet haven’t touched the ground over the last four years.

On the day I caught up with them they’d flown in, performed twice at C2C at two different venues and recorded a great session for us. I felt for them when I caught up with the three young men in their dressing room at the end of a long weekend. Their spirits, however were not diminished and I found their enthusiasm for song writing and performing totally infectious.

With Restless Road’s wonderful harmonies filling the airwaves this week we’re going to give the second hour over to some harmony based songs inspired by the band. Listen out for some Joni, CSN&Y, Highwomen and even Elvis.

We’ll also bring you some great new records from The Heavy Heavy, Tigirlily Gold, Morgan Wade and Andrew Combs. It’s a packed two hours all beginning at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

It’s been an interesting few weeks. Apologies for the show not being on air over these first few weeks of June but, unfortunately, my health took a bit of a wobble and I was unable to be in the studio. There’s no great mystery, it looks as if I have/had contracted Whooping Cough which is still around, but having completed some live shows over the last few days I’m pretty sure I’m ready to return to the old AC. Safe to say, music has been a great healer.

There’s a lot going on in country music as ever, and since we’ve been away the CMA Fest has been and gone in Nashville and more great new music keeps emerging.

On this week’s show we will play out a conversation and session with Lauren Alaina we recorded way back in March when she was in Scotland for Country2Country. Lauren was a real highlight of the festival and she took time out to come over to our Studio One at Pacific Quay and record some acoustic songs as well as an extended conversation. We talk about her collaborations with Lainey Wilson and that great favourite from last year on which she guested with Hardy, One Beer. We also talk about her old friend Kane Brown with whom she’s also collaborated. Like Kane, Lauren dabbled in the talent show circus of The Voice/Xfactor./America’s Got Talent TV franchises and like Kane and many others, she failed to win the show. However unlike so many winners this has not been an impediment to a very successful career.

Elsewhere on this week’s show we’ll have new songs from Lucius, Luke Combs, Nick Lowe and Ashley McBryde. We’ll dive into that newly re discovered Johnny Cash album and we’ll celebrate a baseball legend through the voice of Chuck Prophet.

Finally from me a big thanks you to anyone I’ve encountered…. about 25,000 of you over the last week in Hampton Court, Scarborough and Liverpool. These were magical summer evenings playing music and each audience was such a joy.

A few days before the show I really didn’t have a voice that could get me through but somehow, with a lot of medical help but mostly great care and love from my wife and bandmates, we managed to have three brilliant concerts. It meant so much to us all to be able to complete the shows and we have already rescheduled the Dubai show we had to cancel. I look forward to making more connections with you in Margate this coming weekend.

In the meantime, do join me if you can with my almost healed voice and some great records this Tuesday on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds from 8 o’clock.

Our house guests are unused to late summer evenings. An American and an Australian, they were quite taken with sightseeing in Glasgow until after ten o’clock last night. As we strolled through the University Cloisters my friend Brad told me about growing up in Philadelphia and as we drifted on to the music legacy of that great city he recalled Hall and Oates playing at his junior high school prom. I had no story to match. But this did make me think about the business of encountering your heroes.

I’ve had a mixed experience in this regard and have, when invited, often decided not to accept the invitation. I am slightly wobbly kneed when it comes to footballers however and all pretence of being detached is thrown off in wild gushes of sycophancy. When it comes to musicians I’m a little more circumspect though I have often reflected that I had to stop myself from asking Patty Griffin, ‘Why are you so good?’

As we approach the early part of June there is the best opportunity for country fans to come face to face with all their heroes. From next week, if you can get yourself to Tennessee, you can come face to face to all your favourites in downtown nashville at CMA week. When I first came to Music City is it was known by everyoine as Fan Fair as it was the time when fans could get up close and personal to their music heroes. It’s still essentially got that element to it but is essentially Country Glastonbury without the mud. Over three days in and around downtown you could find yourself seeing country legends as well as the hottest acts on country radio right now. There’s the chance to see them at the football stadium or in small stages, in concert or even performing on Broadway.  One thing you won’t see this year however is my own personal highlight of BMA Fest.  Marty Stuart’s Late Night Jam at The Ryman is always the best night of the year, but for the first year in a long time Marty isn’t bringing the show to town. I do hope it comes back as it’s where I first saw Marty and his Fabulous Superlatives, Ashley McBryde and, despite my jetlag kicking in, it was a joy to see Roger McGuinn at the back of midnight with my old friend Bill DeMain.

It was Bill (our Nashville correspondent) who first showed me round Music City and he’s still the best guide to all the charms of Twang Town. We have invited Bill to join us on this week’s show to tell us all about the do’s, don’ts, who’s and where’s of CMA week.

We will also have some fab new releases from artists appearing at the festival. Listen out for Midland, Runaway June, Tiera Kennedy and Walker County on this week’s show. It all starts at five past eight on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can.

I am in a battle with myself. One of me loves a playlist on my streaming service. The other me feels it’s killing off everything I once loved about listening to records.

I know why it happens. It’s just too easy not to make a decision about which record to play. It’s also far too easy to skip. I can skip on my dog walk, I can dodge an unwanted track as I cook dinner and there’s a handy function on the steering wheel of my car which directs the playlist to miss a song and move to the next one. Oh, the conveniences of modern life.

So with all this in mind I decided I had to favour one side of the argument. Ignoring the reams of playlists joyfully curated I have returned to the album. It can be vinyl – the most pleasing option or CD. (I’m not doing this for some spurious hifi reasons. It’s just I rather like the length of a side of vinyl). This too has led me to a conclusion about making records: too many are too long. The album was a creature of the sixties and early seventies. It adorned living rooms and acted as code for taste in thousands of student bedrooms where curiously sniffy friends would leaf through your precious collection pointedly guffawing at any long players that they deemed were superfluous to their ideal collection. Occasionally a pal might discharge and a grunt of quiet approval. This usually indicated he too owned the record.

However, despite all of the dancing around the record player there was always a point where a selection was made, the needle came down and for the next 20 minutes or so you kinda knew where you were. As we returned from a trip to enjoy the play offs last week (we were interested outsiders at the Partick Thistle end) my son took control of the bluetooth and assembled a more than passable stream of Beatles and assorted fab four solo tracks. However as each slection clicked in I found myself wishing to hear all of Hard Days Night, Ram or All Things Must Pass. There was far too much jumping around.

So, on what has my own needle come down upon? Just there, while preparing a fine Caesar Salad (yes I did  my own dressing, thanks for asking) I took in the whole of the current album by Adeem The Artist. Last night, while writing some letters I enjoyed both sides of Blue Rose Code’s new offering on vinyl. And over a few days I’ve been making my through the early records of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans. It’s all been a joy and I have found gems to which I want to return.

On this week’s show I shall bring you some beautiful offerings from a diversity of country stars including Randy Travis, Secret Sisters, Matt and even Buck Owens.

We shall also play out a conversation with the act who stole my heart at this year’s C2C: Chapel Hart gathered in their dressing room to tell us their story and why it was their own answer to Dolly Parton’s most famous song which has brought the attention of the country community. It’s as entertaining a conversation as we have ever had and the above shot from the encounter sums it all up.

Do join us for a packed show. The needle comes down at five past eight this Tuesday on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland.

It’s always hard to predict the year ahead in music. But one thing  for sure is I didn’t think we’d spend the second quarter of the year talking about (and importantly listening to) Beyoncé Knowles. Cowboy Carter is now a month old and you only have to cast a glance at Billboard’s Hot Country Songs to know that Beyoncé  has managed to do any number of impossible feats.

Firstly she’s answered the challenge in her opening track, “American Requiem” by imposing herself where she declared she had not been welcomed.

They used to say I spoke too country
Then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ‘nough

Secondly she has shaken up country music’s obsession with the questionable ethics of their current picture postcard, Morgan Wallen. He’s still there but his wings have been clipped and he’s in sever danger of being knocked off his lofty perch.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps the most important one, she has redefined what we mean by country music and smashed through the music business’s meaningless obsession with genre, which never concerned real music fans.

On this week’s show we are going to reflect on her remarkable album, Cowboy Carter one month in. Emma Gallagher, who is producing the show over the last couple of weeks has been making all the CC connections for a very special second hour of this week’s AC. So I asked Emma to write something about this remarkable record.

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‘Can you hear me? Or do you fear me?’

Beyoncé sings on Cowboy Carter’s opening track AMERIICAN REQUIEM as she sets the scene for a conversation-sparking, genre-bending record.

In the second hour of this week’s AC we’ll be delving into the biggest country album of the year so far, celebrating its impact and exploring the historic influences and colossal collaborators Beyoncé has enlisted (Linda Martell, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson & Rhiannon Giddens to name a few!)

With the release of TEXAS HOLD ‘EM, Beyonce became the first Black woman with a number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart. Now, a month on from Cowboy Carter’s release, the album continues to lead the country chart in the US.

In a genre where she once felt unwelcome, Beyoncé has claimed space and pushed boundaries. Cowboy Carter references the legends we know, but more importantly pays homage to the Black origin roots of country and the Black pioneers who led the way in the genre. She’s taken on the role of ‘outlaw’ by challenging gatekeeping and stereotypes, but also by simply telling her own story as a Southern Black woman. And as the artist sings herself, ‘if that ain’t country, tell me what is?’

In the first hour of this week’s show we’ll have some great new releases by Caitlyn Smith, Adeem The Artist and Tyler Childers. We’ll also pay tribute to a great rock n roll icon and friend of country music who died last week. Duane Eddy’s country connections were numerous and as he’s correctly mourned by a generation who danced to his guitar instrumentals so too is his passing grieved by many in the country community where he made his home over the last forty years.

All this in two hours? We shall certainly try by starting at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds.