On some days country music seems to be pretty damned unimportant. Some days very little seems important other than waking up and knowing everyone you love is safe. Today is one of those days. What I wrote yesterday is not vital in any way, but then so little of what I think and do ever is. I dare say, you might feel that about yourself too.

But what is important stuff? Important is the humdrum, the regular, the prosaic. Last night a bunch of kids went to a gig to experience being taken away from that for a few hours and after it was all over some never came home. Some will never come home.

Music was the pull for may of these young people last night and I strongly suspect it will be to music they return for comfort in the days ahead.Today it feels like there are a lot of words out there and not quite enough music. So I’m not going to add any more.

Tonight we’ll be playing music, country music as that’s what we do. We’ll be joined by Rab Noakes reflecting on his love of the genre. We’ll be on air at five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland as usual. As ever and as long as we are able we’ll imagine Another Country, the one where everybody’s welcome.

In a recent Rough Trade podcast John Moreland picks some of his favourite records. On it he talks about his punk rock roots and discovering Bruce Springsteen around the time of The Rising. John also talks about being asked to play his version of Thunder Road on his recent BBC visit…oh that was us John, that was us. We saw a YouTube of John doing the song and we thought we’d love that to happen on Another Country.

This coming Tuesday night you can hear what it sounds like when a young singer from Tulsa Oklahoma puts his own voice around the lines, ‘It’s a town for the losers and I’m pulling out of here to win.‘ That will be the bonus on a really beautiful session which was recorded just a couple of weeks ago when John came to Glasgow. As he explains in the interview, it was his first visit to play a show here but he’d already come across the border just to be here on a previous tour. We think John may become a regular visitor to our country once people hear the music he is playing. Beautifully crafted songs of heartache would be an easy way to describe John’s records, but don’t label him to easily. Coming from a background of 150BPM Punk rock he’s a lover of Minor Threat and other bands of that ilk. On twitter today someone got put in their place when they suggested Chris Stapleton is taking the title for “Sad Bastard of country” away from John…… Here’s JM’s reply: Good, I ain’t country and I ain’t sad.

John Moreland.

The listeners to this week’s Another Country can be the judges of that. It’s a brilliant session where John performs an acoustic version of a song he hadn’t performed solo up until that point and then there is that cover version. John Moreland may or may not be country – that’s really not the point – he is however singing something quite unique in a new fresh voice. Once more the sound of America comes from Oklahoma and we’re enjoying so much of what we’re hearing.

Also we have new and great things from Steve Earle, Bonnie Prince Billy, Pieta Brown and ….wait for it people….Fleet Foxes. We’ll explain – with good audio evidence – why John Mayer has gone country and we’ll remind you of some great music from Buck Owens and Nanci Griffiths.

My producer, Richard Murdoch is back from his American peregrinations with vinyl in his suitcase and you’ll hear the sound of Lillie Mae – fresh from Third Man Records , Pie Town, Nashville Tennessee. It’s going to be a great night. Join us live from five past nine on BBC radio Scotland FM.

On my first visit to the American west coast I drove up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco and was transfixed at the California I’d heard so much about but had never seen. With the radio on we drove through the desert as we had only a couple of days spare and as we got nearer our destination ( beach barbecue in Santa Cruz) my travelling partner (the fair Mrs R) pointed to the San Anselmo sign. ‘There’s a lovely song by Van Morrison‘ she told me,’ called Snow in San Anselmo.’ Lorraine McIntosh knew her Van better than either of us knew the map of California and the song was the lead track to ‘Hard Nose The Highway.’

I’ve been thinking about Van this year a lot. At the UK Americana awards in January he was the star turn, laughing and telling jokes and clearly happy to be included in the Americana community. Last year he brought out his excellent album ‘Keep Me Singing’ and it has never been far away from the top 5 of the UK Americana Chart since the release. It’s not difficult to make the case for Van’s inclusion in the genre…in fact there’s a good argument for saying he, more than any other artist, defines it.

Recently his catalogue has been brilliantly updated to include a completed version of his 1974 live album, ‘Too Late to Stop Now’ including the original complete show recordings from London and LA and even more recently a beautifully remastered debut album.It got me thinking a little about paying proper tribute to Van’s Americana roots.

So tonight a little journey with a Van! From ‘The Authorised Bang Collection’ via ‘A period of Transition right up to ‘Keep me Singing….some Vanicana! On the way along we’ll play you some artists covering similar material and explain why following the Van maybe the best way to understand Americana music.

We have some new music from new artists this Tuesday. Listen out for first spins for Kaia Kater, Juanita Stein and a new single from Julie Byrne. We have some 7 inch vinyl from Dan Auerbach and great memories from Hank Snow. We will also be celebrating significant releases from two of the most interesting new voices of the last few years, John Moreland and Chris Stapleton. Do make a point of joining us live if you can. We’re live this Tuesday from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland FM.

I like my Monday night yoga class very much. There are 8 or 9 of us breathing heavily in a converted garden room as a neighbourly teacher takes us through our moves. There’s only ever been one problem ……the music. It’s not that the music is bad or anything, it’s pretty bland really, it’s just that, well, it’s there.

I have the same problem with films. I’ll find myself coming out and discussing the soundtrack. I’ll have an opinion about it and my friends will say…I didn’t even notice the music. It’s a problem I’m working hard to resolve but it’s been around for a long while now. From early memory I remember watching the TV just to hear familiar tunes on the test card. It didn’t bother me over much that there was nothing to see, I was only really interested in what was coming out of the speaker. You can see how this leads into days getting lost and confused. When I’m listening to a radio half-time report live from a football ground I’m more interested in the song in the background than the story being told by the correspondent. Music kinda takes over in one way or another. I see most of this as a curse rather than a blessing, and I often wish I could shut my brain down.

I say all of this because we are all here because we love music. Some of us may be more catholic in taste than others, but I suspect you are unlikely to be reading this blog if music isn’t a high priority in your life. For most of us that priority is an adjunct to work; we play or listen as a way of relaxing. It will help us celebrate or be the soundtrack to a broken-hearted period or it might well set us up for the working day. Last week I got to experience something really beautiful about music that may not have happened to everyone.

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I’m patron to a very special group of musicians called The Fridays who are part of MusicAll. Based in Hazelewood School in Glasgow, The Fridays meet (every Friday) to make music. Nothing unusual about this so far until you realise that members of the group are all people with extreme sensory disabilities. This means that when The Fridays do a gig – it’s a big deal. There’s a lot to organise. Last Friday, on top of all the other stuff, they had to contend with me playing and singing with them too. They learned up two of my songs and we played them together at a fund raising lunch in the Glasgow Hilton to 800 guests. It went very well and everyone enjoyed it hugely.

What is so moving about any time I’m with the group is how much of a difference the music is making. Although they sing and play, some of the young people are not able to communicate in other ways; sometimes they can’t talk. One girl in the group was silent and uncommunicative in all other areas of her life until she started to make music. When I sang with the group last time round she was still not able to say hello or make any form of greeting. Last week she greeted me like an old friend. Music had sneaked in where all other forms of contact hadn’t worked. It was magical.

This Tuesday we can gather round the radio and be glad we can all enjoy music as a life giving force. Love the old songs from Trisha Yearwood, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. You can also enjoy the new songs from Valerie June, Sam Baker, Will Stratton, Charlie Dore and Conor Oberst. But mostly let us all be glad about what music can do. Join me from five past eight this Friday on BBC Radio Scotland.

In my other life we’ve been reminded quite a bit that it’s 30 years since we released our first album. (Mr Murdoch has quietly been assembling an interesting hour of radio on this very subject which you can all hear very soon.) On a slightly less well celebrated note it’s also 10 years since I visited America’s Music City. In 1997 I had an interesting couple of weeks where I deputised for Bryan Burnett’s Brand New Country show on BBC Radio Scotland  – despite knowing nothing about country music. A week or so later I made my first trip to Nashville to engage with the song writing community.

I had always wanted to go. It had lodged in my imagination since I got my first headed letter from my first music publishers, ATV Music, with their offices in LA, London and Nashville. So getting to the city in 2007 was going to be a highlight whatever happened. So much of what I now love and understand was framed in that first visit. I remember checking into my hotel and walking over to Music Row so I could understand a little of what it looked like. It was a weekend night and there was no one around so the banners outside the record companies and offices flapped around in the warm wind as I tried to make sense of the names and the titles. Who were Rascal Flatts and why did the song writers names get emblazoned on the banners? Phoning home in a state of excited exuberance I told my wife I could imagine myself living in the city. ‘Oh yeah,’ her slightly skeptical voice broke in,’ and what would I wear?’ I’d been in the Greenhills Mall that afternoon….she had a point.

At the time my publishers were Warners Music who were headed up by the good, Dale Bobo, one of the loveliest and kindest music executives I’ve ever met. He’s still a good friend. Dale was putting together a writing itinerary for me. ‘You should work with various writers here,’ he told me. ‘Sean here is going well – he’s already had a couple of cuts on the last Brad Paisley album’. To my shame, I had no idea who Brad Paisley was let alone who my fellow writer was. In the time I’ve been going back there – I’m going for the 9th time next month – I’ve heard and seen the name Brad Paisley many times more and realised what I didn’t know was quite a lot.

So on this Tuesday’s AC I will play out my first ever meeting with the man himself ten years on at this year’s C2C. Brad’s new album Love and War is finally out and we spent a fruitful time with him chatting over his own back catalogue, playing C2C and his recent encounter with The Rolling Stones. Later on I saw him deliver a knock down, ninety minutes master class in live performance which (songs aside) was up in Springsteen league for sheers charisma and entertainment value. I’d heard Brad was the doyen of country performers but nothing had prepared me for how good he was. This wasn’t a man playing the hits or resting out on laurels, it was an artist leading his own band and his audience all the way home. It’s early in 2017 but I’ll be lucky to see such a consumate performance as Brad Paisley’s that March evening. Join us this Tuesday for a very personal encounter with one of the biggest country starts on the planet.

If that’s not enough join us to hear new music from Angaleena Presley, Chris Stapleton and John Moreland. We have some significant classic cuts from Skeeter Davis, Gillian Welch and Chris Young. As well as that two gorgeous new songs from forthcoming Ron Sexsmith and Sam Baker from forthcoming new albums. This all happens in two hours so make sure you join us from five past nine this coming Tuesday from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.

I’m turning things upside down a little. I’m working on the Easter Bank Holiday. When I say working…. I’m staring out my studio window onto a lovely day. Later on we’re going walking with chums but this Easter Morning I’m listening to some fine new records and making lists of things I want to play on this Tuesday night’s AC. It’s nothing like work and I’m not (quite) stupid enough to ever believe it is. Doing anything musical well takes a bit of application but it’s always going to be a pleasure. I’ve been avoiding real work for 30 plus years and I’ve no intention of returning any time soon.

I was thinking about all of this when I thought about my guest on this week’s show. At one point over the last couple of years Courtney Marie Andrews returned to work. She came home from Belgium where she’d been living for four months and took a job in a bar outside Seattle. Now that’s real work! Over the course of the next while Courtney listened to the stories from the Tavern and began to assemble the songs which would make up Honest Life, her 2017 album. It’s an album that has wormed its way into our affections and indeed, when we reconvened after the Christmas holiday my producer, Richard Murdoch confessed he’d not been able to stop playing it. I have felt a similar bond to an album which, already, seems like a companion to 2017.

This Tuesday you can hear what happened when Courtney Marie Andrews came into Studio One at Pacific Quay at BBC Radio Scotland and recorded a very special session for us. On that day she was kind enough too to leave me a copy of Honest Life on vinyl which is sounding just great on this spring Monday Morning.

Elsewhere I’ll have some new songs from some old favourites including Rodney Crowell, Oh Susannah, Andrew Combs and Hillfolk Noir. We’ll also have new music from the late Chuck Berry, Dan Auerbach and a few surprises you’re really going to love.

I love it when listeners write in and keep us up to speed. So we’re indebted to Conor Randby who alerted us to the death of Johnny Cash’s guitarist Bob Wootton. We’ll tell you more about Bob this coming Tuesday and play something by him and something new from the man he introduced to Johnny Cash: Marty Stuart.

We’re live this Tuesday from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

In this week’s Observer there is a very timely interview with Maren Morris headlined, ‘Country music shouldn’t always be about the guy’. Speaking about a subject we have touched on frequently on Another Country she’s asked about the lack of female artists being played on country radio. Optimistically she says, ‘You listen to the radio and there’s 10 dudes and they all sound the same, but when the girl comes on, you probably know who it is because it’s so distinct.’

It’s one way of looking at it and it’s no surprise that Maren Morris should believe this. After all she’s had a massive hit single with ‘My Church’ which certainly made the dudes on Music Row sit up and think a little I expect. Take one look at this week’s Hot Country songs however and you quickly realise it might take a few more Maren moments to change country’s predominantly male radio domination. This week on The Billboard Hot Country Chart there were four solo, female artists in the top 50. There were three other women but they were part of mixed groups or guests of male artists. Surprising?

Not to our guest this week. Cam, like Maren Morris has caused her own mini earthquakes in country overt the last two years. Most of that came down to her massive song Burning House. It brought Cam into a rarefied group of new, young, hip female country artists who have (to me anyway) re awakened country music. Nevertheless, as you can see, that renaissance has not greatly changed the gender of radio play or sales. Even in this streaming age, radio is still the life blood of country music. So how did  all of that affect Californian Cam as she addressed breaking into Music Row? Like Maren Morris she saw this more as an opportunity rather than an obstacle and it speaks volumes that the positive attitude of both artists has reaped huge dividends. As ever, however there is much more to that question and you can hear her more considered opinion on this Tuesday’s AC. Just after a great performance at C2C I went along to catch up with Cam in her Glasgow dressing room and we chatted about this, Amelia Earhart and so much more.

After our 2 hour Merle Haggard special last week we’ll have the perfect sequel from Willie Nelson’s new record where it closes with his own moving tribute to The Hag. We will also have the brilliant, brilliant new single from Jason Isbell which, if it is an indicator of the album to follow, will establish him as the defining voice in country and Americana for 2017…there I’ve said it! We’ll have great new tracks from Andrew Combs, Joan Shelley and hear the much anticipated first tracks from Ray Davies new collaboration with The Jayhawks.

We’ll also make room for some country Gospel since it is Holy Week and we think we might have some of that on vinyl too. There’s an awful lot of music in two hours so make sure you join us from five past nine this Tuesday on BBC Radio Scotland.

In Nicholas Dawidoff’s book, ‘In The Country of Country’ there’s a fascinating portrait of Merle Haggard from around twenty years ago. Dawidoff’s premise is simple; he goes to the places where the country music was made. He travels to Virginia, Kentucky and  Tennessee and, in the chapter on Merle Haggard, up to Northern California. There he encounters Merle figuring out how he can interpret the music of Iris Dement. The Hag had discovered Iris Dement because she covered Big City on Tulare Dust: A Song Writers Tribute to Merle Haggard. Hearing Dement’s version of ‘Big City’ on his tour bus, Merle had the coach pull in at the next town so he could get copies of Dement’s first two albums. It was then he heard her song,  ‘No Time To Cry.’  So, as we catch up with them both in Dawidoff’s tale, Merle has asked Iris over to Shade Tree Manor, his Northern Californian compound, so she can teach him the song that would eventually appear on his album 1996.

By an interesting coincidence it was this album that was my first purchase of The Hag. Back then I dipped in and out of country music when something caught my ear. A couple of years before I too had been consumed by Iris Dement for an entire summer after my own father passed away. It was the album that got me through a strange, disconnected period of life. Mere tackles Iris’s song in the same key with a mature wistfulness only a country veteran could muster. When it comes to the line ‘cause I’m older now, I aint go to no time to cry,’ he phrases it so perfectly somehow, well… you just get it. Interesting too that Iris’s own choice of Merle song on Tulare Dust was ‘Big City.’ Haggard’s own decision to settle in Northern California was itself a flight from his original home in Bakersfield where it ‘didn’t rain enough.’ Big City’s famous lyric goes:

Turn me loose, set me free
Somewhere in the middle of Montana
And give me all I’ve got coming to me

And keep your retirement
And your so-called Social Security
Big city turn me loose and set me free

Perhaps that’s what people buy into when they relate to Merle Haggard. In a world where the epithet has been cheapened beyond recognition Merle Haggard wholly deserves the status of ‘legendary.’   A Country Great because he did what he wanted and unusually stayed  far away from the big city no country blog ever fails to mention: Nashville. Merle distrusted the musicians there and knew that being separated by thousands of miles was the distance he needed to create his own special world. What a world that was. A fifty year career including a back catalogue of songs anyone (country, rock ‘n’ roll, folk or pop musician would kill for) and then……the voice.

I love the fact that Merle is a great songwriter; it’s what matters most to me, but there is also something strangely compelling about a great country voice. In Merle’s case it’s a voice you believe in. Often within a line it can bend your heart then, as quickly, fire you up as he spits out another perceived injustice. More than anything else it often seemed as if Merle Haggard understood his own audience’s fears and aspirations well enough to articulate something they might be feeling. Think Okie From Muskogee, Branded Man, Working Man’s Blues or Mama Tried. But then he sang love songs which make you want to get up and start all over again. ‘Silver Wings’ or ‘Today I Started Loving You Again’ or ‘Misery and Gin.’

This Tuesday we’ll play you these songs sung by some great artists as well as The Hag himself. We will hear from Suzy Boguss, Sturgill Simpson, Sam Outlaw, Marty Stuart, Willy Vlautin and Timothy B Schmit. Then we’ll hear the voice of the man himself from an interview he gave in 1976 with David Allan on BBC Radio 2. Finally we will conclude our year long Merle celebration by playing hits no. 37 and 38 from Merle’s catalogue of No 1 singles. We will be celebrating 80 years since Merle was born (6 April), the same date he left us one year ago.

It will be two very special and, I hope, quite sentimental hours of music and conversation. If you love Merle Haggard we will aim to celebrate what you already know. If you don’t we think you might well by the end of the show. Join me if you can this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland FM from five past nine.

In an old, cold church in Hackney on a January Thursday, Mr Richard Murdoch and I shared a mall epiphany. It was a one song sung by Peter Bruntnell called ‘Long Way From Home.’ In the seat behind me was my agent, and a man who knows a thing or two about Americana, Paul Fenn. ‘Ah…’ he anticipated,’ I’ve heard so much about this man but never seen him. He’s meant to be very good.’ He wasn’t wrong. It was, perhaps, the highlight of a very good night at the UK Americanas.

Soon after we were kindly sent two of his albums and informed by our old friend Iain Sloan that Peter was coming to Scotland. Iain (pedal steel player to Blue Rose Code and The Wynntown Marshalls) was putting a small band together and we were keen to see if they would include the AC in their tour itinerary.

As someone who pays scant attention to music journalism I’ve managed to miss out on the good press that has followed Peter over the years. But those of you who know better will already be aware that Peter has been much admired by the music writers over the years although none of that seems to have been matched by exposure to his music on the airwaves. It’s a shame because there is so much there to enjoy. If you love The Jayhawks, Bill Callahan, Alex Chilton, the late Bap Kennedy and Richmond Fontaine you are going to love Peter’s music. In fact I would say his songs contain the same simplicity and ache of our very own Teenage Fanclub. (which makes me wonder why we aren’t playing them more too?) Indeed he is one of Willy Vlautin’s favourite singers and, though Peter’s own subject matter covers a wider target, there is something akin to the pathos and humanity found in Willy’s own songs and novels. Where Willy’s own stories could all begin and end in a dingy bar in Reno, Peter’s casts a detached but accurate eye over Spitfire Pilots, Jimmy Webb and eastern mountain tops.

If that isn’t enough we welcome back one of our oldest chums, the good Ben Glover. Ben defines Americana these days. Moving from Antrim to Tennessee, he’s made a clutch of albums over there and written with some great artists including Mary Gauthier and Gretchen Peters. On Ben’s previous record we found him recording songs in Ireland he’d written in Nashville. This time round he’s looking back across the water and reflecting on home on a partly traditional record themed around exile. The Emigrant (the title track he wrote with Gretchen Peters) contains covers and originals of stories of what what, in Sam Outlaw’s phrase, we’re all looking for: Home.

By the time you read this many of you may have had a chance to see Ben or Peter in concert last week. This Tuesday, stay in and enjoy the songs and stories of these brilliant artists. It all starts from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.

It was one of those early parties soon after coming to Glasgow. I was innocently nursing a beer when my pal came up to me and determined he would know my opinion. I saw a slight madness in his eyes and knew the argument would not be settled unless I agreed to the principle of the hypothesis. ‘Who is it Rick?…. Tell me,’ he gently pushed, ‘ Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry?’ It was pointless asking if we had to choose, he was way beyond that. ‘Oh, it’s Chuck, Swan..it’s definitely Chuck.’ He slid off my shoulder and fell back into a relaxed slump on the carpet. I’d passed the test.

35 years later I have often thought of that conversation and how, I feel slightly guilty at letting Buddy down. (Females please note, only blokes have time to worry about this kind of stuff) I chose Chuck then and for many of the same reasons I’d pick him now, though I pray we are beyond the binary when it comes to musical decision making. Back then I knew some basic things about Chuck Berry that I still think are pretty important. His name was in the brackets of some of the records I’d owned as a kid that meant the world to me, every band I knew or wanted to know covered at least one of his songs and he was, to me, a great singer songwriter. Retrospectively all of that and more could be said about Buddy Holly too but there was one other factor about Chuck…well, he was kinda dangerous.

Aged 18 and still in school, Chuck was sent to reformatory for armed robbery. There was no ‘Merle sees Johnny’ moment here however. On his release he settled down to work in an auto plant before his big break arrived nearly ten years later. He met Leonard Chess in May 1955  who signed him to his legendary label in Chicago starting an incredible 60 year career. Chuck’s first single and still one of his most loved songs, Maybellene was his own take on Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys‘ traditional song Ida Red. From George Jones through to Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris Chuck’s songs have weaved their way through country music and rock ‘n’ roll. Nothing would have been possible had he not written the songs or played and sung the way he did. Last year he announced plans to make his first new album in 38 years which he would be making for Nashville’s own Dualtone Records. This is the cover of the album which has still to come out.

On Tuesday we’ll play Chuck and we’ll explain a little of his country connections. We’re delighted to say we are also going to include a new track from the (excellent) new Angaleena Presley album, some vinyl from Conor Oberst, a new song from Scotland’s own Eugene Twist and Edinburgh band, Mersault. Look out for more tracks from Hurray For The Riff Raff and we pay tribute to Dolly Parton’s Mr Everything, pedal steel player Don Warden who died last week.

It all starts at five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland FM this Tuesday. Join me if you can.