This Friday is going to be about Avi Buffalo.

If you got the chance to see them recently then I congratulate you; I missed it. However Avi himself (real name Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg…and sometimes you need a snappier title) came into our wee studio in Edinburgh and cut 3 session tracks on a borrowed acoustic guitar. (Richard Murdoch brought it all the way from Glasgow!)

Avi’s influences include Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young and The Beach Boys. He’s got all these going on and way more.  He’s only 19. To my particular delight he comes on the show a week after the septuagenarian Kris Kristofferson. It’s my considered opinion that we’re playing music that’s great whatever age you are playing or listening to it.

We’re not going to go too far into the show without talking about Robert Plant and Buddy Miller.

I haven’t heard all the album yet and I love it! What I’m saying is that I love the fact that someone who could be sitting back and organising polo matches is out there making great music and listening to new cool bands…and cutting their songs!

But this picture is what I really love.  For his producer, Robert has picked THE man to do the job…yes, my friends there will be many ‘Where’s Buddy?’ moments this week.

The big news about the album is Robert’s choice of Low‘s songs.

I didn’t know much about Low, and you will no doubt fill me in on this but I gather they are a 3 piece band from Duluth who are part of the ‘slowcore’ thing. You can find out more yourselves but the lovely thing about old Percy is he’s already got me finding their music. What a guy….and me never a Zep fan! What was I thinking??

In the past week I have been to see Sam Baker at the The Fallen Angels Club, I’m hoping to see Wilco and I’m aware of missing Steve Earle and Dave Rawlings Machine. On the Facebook site I suggest that you could let us know about what you thought of these gigs here or there and tell us what we missed. There must be gigs in other parts of Scotland we’re missing, so let us know all about them.

There will be lots of all the usual stuff. Look out for new releases from Ray Lamontagne and Justin Townes Earle and some lovely things from Furnace Mountain, Frazey Ford, Tift Merritt, Deer Tick and Caitlin Rose.

We won’t forget about Hank Williams or Bill Monroe in all of this and remember to tell us about your thoughts on our Another Country Movie Club film of the month, ‘Walk The Line.’

If you still have some radio time left in you I’ll be sitting in for the great Bob Harris on his weekend Radio 2 shows for the next couple of Sauturday/Sundays. This Saturday we have Roddy Hart and The Lonesome Fire in session.

Don’t mistake me for someone who knows things. A few years back a friend of mine held a film premier at the GFT and invited me along. As we were going to our seats he said, “Ricky, you know Kris Kristofferson don’t you?” I realised at this point that we were to sit next to the great man and his wife. Fortunately it was a film; the lights went out and we said hello quickly then a polite goodbye a couple of hours later.

I tell you this because I didn’t really know Kris Kristofferson’s work and right up to that point the best use of his name occurred in  John Byrne’s wonderful ‘Still Life.’ (I’ll leave you to find that one) That all changed a few years ago when my friend Roddy Hart asked me along to see his show at The Royal Concert Hall supprorting the great man. What I hadn’t fully recognised was the depth of Kris’s songs, how intrinsic they were to the Scottish DNA and how much he was loved by the people of Glasgow. That night and last month he played without his band and, whenever someone would shout for a particularly massive song, reply. ‘If I do that the night will be over.’ Nobody wanted that. When he got to the end of the final chorus he would let the song trail off and announce its completion by offering a dusty, “Thank you very much,” triggering wild applause. It was magical. I told everyone to go and see it so I had to go back myself.

This time the blessed Roddy arranged for me to meet up and invite him to be our special guest on Another Country.  I met up with him in his dressing room just after soundcheck at the Royal Concert Hall and I took along with me my old pal Perkin Warbeck (aka Doug Small.) Warbeck is a fan from way back and had the ultimate conversation opener to the great man, “I saw you play Matagalpa, Nicaragua in 1987”

Kris and Warbeck then spent 15 minutes reminiscing about their time in Central America and in particular Kris’s support of The Sandinistas who were facing severe sanctions from the then US Reagan government. You probably know more of Kris’s radical credentials than I do but just in case you are in any doubt, this is a good illustration of those and the man’s ability to hold his own.

In the end I must have spent 45 minutes with Kris Kristofferson and decided we didn’t have time to talk about Michael Cimino, Barbara Steisand or Waylon Jennings. We skipped over the army years and we didn’t spend time talking about the Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. However we did talk about his friend John Cash, his being there at the birth of some of the great Dylan recordings and some of the wonderful covers of his many great songs. If you need to be reminded about the impact of some of these then you might want to to listen to Glen Campbell, Gladys Knight or Elvis Presley…oh yeah, sorry…that’s just ONE song! If you want some more names….Perry Como, Willie Nelson….Al Green!

There’s so much more……. But you can hear all of that on Friday from 8.

In the other hour you will get another chance to hear the interview I did with the man who gave the name to Kris’s supergroup, The Highwaymen, Jimmy Webb which was first broadcast on January 1st. We also have an exclusive session from Jimmy and his family recorded when he visited Scotland last year.

For the night owls, I’m going to be sitting in for Bob Harris on September 19th and 20th on Radio 2. On the first of these nights I’ll be joined by the aforementioned Roddy Hart and his band.

It’s 1974 or 1975 I’m still a kid and there’s a student comes to our church, name of John Fitzpatrick. He loves music. He’s at the university and he tells me about the gigs he’s been to. At the time  he liked it better – and if I’m honest, so did I – if the music had a Christian edge. It meant we could enjoy it more and not feel as guilty as we did when we dug the Stones. Do you know where I’m coming from?

Parallel to this I’d heard about this group of people in Nashville called The Outlaws. Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard were in that elite group and then there was Willie.

So John get excited one day at the Youth Fellowship and tells me that Willie Nelson has brought out an album called ‘The Troublemaker.’ It’s all Gospel songs. What excited me more was that Willie was covering half the hymns in a Hymn Book we used to have in the Gospel Hall: Redemption Songs. But Willie was singin them like we’d never heard them sung……. Suddenly I was finding myself saying “Forget ‘Youth Praise,’let’s keep the old fogeys’ hymn book and sing it the Willie way. “Sweet Bye and Bye,” There is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” “Shall We Gather At The River” (my Dad’s favourite) and “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” Man, these songs were no longer torturing me, they were released into glorious, abundant life by Willie Nelson. Thank you John, thank you Willie Nelson and thank you  Sankey and Moody.

I met up with the great man on his tour bus in Edinburgh a few months back and you can hear that as well as the music of Willie in Another Country. All on Friday from 8. The night before I’d been to see him do this. I wept.

Every Prime Minister , it was said, needs a Willie. Not much that Margaret Thatcher said I believed  – but she got it right there.

This is the place where ou should add our comments about this month’s movie.

In case you haven’t heard the Another Country Movie Club’s film of the month of August 2010

is Coal Miner’s Daughter. If you have seen the film and would like to make some comments on it then please add them to this blog. Don’t worry if you didn’t like it…there will be another one along soon!

Everyone’s gone back to school…OK…..not everyone. A student daughter leaves for University in a couple of weeks time, but she’s on holiday – but the others are back. Occasionally the house is empty; sometimes the car is too. I’ve taken some shortish journeys, but long enough to get acquainted with some new music. What I haven’t done yet is watch our movie of the month…though that will certainly happen.

For me finding time when I am totally on my own is often the key. Last week I had a significant car journey. I had to drive to the country to get a fault fixed on my laptop – it’s still not sorted – and the journey there and back brought two things: Firstly some music that I hadn’t yet had time to discover and probably more importantly a new song that I ended up writing and completely recording in one continuous session – all on my lonesome. I hope that one will see the light of day next year..keep you posted.

But here’s some things I listened to on that journey I think you’ll like: Starting with this:

Anais’s Mitchell‘s album Hadestown is hugely ambitious and I think it’s time we checked it out. You can see Anais sing it here but on the album you can hear her perform it with Justin Vernon from Bon Iver. It’s great.

I also want you to hear the greatness of Rory Erikson.

….we have had that on the subby’s bench for the last two weeks as well as discovering the delights of Laura Gibson.

But there’s more……..I mentioned that we have a new Justin Townes Earle album to play.

I hope you are aware of Justin. Famously he’s the son of Steve and he’s just made his third album. In a funny way his history aligns nicely with that of Another Country. It was at the start of last year that we had Justin as a guest on the show when he visited Celtic Connections. It’s great when you see someone you like developing so strongly. I think this is Justin’s best record by a mile and all the potential I saw in his live show is parcelled brilliantly into the album.

We’ll play two songs from that record so make sure you join us on time!

We’ll also have some new material from Ray LaMontagne.

However I have to tell you about our special guest: Annabelle Chvostek

is some time singer. guitarist, mandolin player with the Wailin’ Jennies. She made an album called Resilience which contains, in the title track, one of the best songs and recordings of the last year. It is a truly brilliant song that should become a modern classic. On Friday you can hear her live version and you can also see it here.

Make sure you join me.

On Monday I went down to London and found myself wandering through buildings of the past. I turned up at a meeting at a famous Music Business Address and realised I’d been there before….. Reminded me of a story. If you haven’t read it I recommend you read it every ten years or so……….

In these offices where I was now meeting new people I’d sat 13 years ago having a meeting with someone who was to play a big part of my life and 12 or so years before that I’d been in the same offices plugging a demo to some poor A & R guy. Suddenly ghosts were walking around the room. Of course when you throw some music into that mix……it really can become magic.

Later in the week I drove into the country and let the i pod do its own thing. The joy when I remembered, Stephen Stills “Old Times, Good Times” or a little burst of Charley Patton and then George Jones. I don’t remember all of these people from the past. I came late to Charlie and George but from them I get a sense of life then, and that small glimpse is often as good as anything. We’ll uncover more of the past this Friday.

I should say that The Another Country Movie Club is getting some very positive feedback. I’ll have some news of screenings soon…..If you own a good telly and you fancy hosting a film night of Coal Miner’s Daughter then let us know here or on the show at the usual addresses.

We’ll also go right up to date with some new records. Look out for Jonas Shandell

and Deer Tick.

Hey…you just knew one of these guys was going to sport a big beard.

Did you enjoy the chat with Laura Barton? We thought we’d pick up some loose ends from that conversation too. We’ll have some Van Morrison, Sarah Suskind and other threads for you in the next few weeks. Just stay with us.

Oh, Did I say Kim Richey‘s going to be on the show?

In the next few weeks I’ll have new songs from the great Justin Townes Earle. If you can’t wait here’s Justin doing a song you’re bound to love….

Where to begin?

It’s been an interesting old week. Since last Friday I’ve been listening to some great new things, writing some songs, reading some interesting things and well………..I hope that the fruit of some of that will become apparent on Friday night.

Firstly this..

During the course of the last series Richard Murdoch and I began to talk about all the great Country Music movies we had enjoyed. It was partly prompted by the release of Crazy Heart then we were reminded about Oh Brother Where Art Thou because we featured the music as one of our “Beginners Guide to Alt Country” albums. So, I started collecting film titles to add to the list of great Country movies. The redoubtable Richard Wooton (who is a publicist for some of the acts we feature and a confirmed Country music fan) joined in. By May I had a list of around 30 films.

So where do we start? It will run a bit like a book club – (except it’s virtual and we’re chatting film!) We plan to talk about any given current film over a month of shows. During that month we’ll feature music from the movie and give you as much information as we can about it. For your part, you can hire, beg, steal, borrow or even buy the DVD in question and at a date we all agree on we’ll host an on-line chat about the movie we’ve enjoyed…it may be that we dedicate a separate piece of our blog to this. We are currently exploring the possibility of the occasional live screening where we can all meet up, watch the film and have a real time blether. That would be great – so any help in that department is very welcome.

For August our film is going to be “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Starring Cissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helm.

In case you haven’t seen it, it’s the bio-pic of Loretta Lynn and it’s a real classic. Plenty there for everyone to get their teeth into and it seems to be widely available.

You can tell us where you plan to watch it and we’ll direct you towards a date when we can all chat about it – hopefully at the same time. We will also look to the online community to suggest future films.

I hope this will be fun and ultimately we will all enjoy the films and get turned on to some music we haven’t fully explored before.

But that’s not all……. On Friday I hope to be joined in the studio by Laura Barton.

Laura writes for The Guardian and writes a wonderful column called Hail, Hail Rock n Roll. I have mentioned it a few times on air and I commend it highly to you. I may breach all copright rules here but I’ll give you a small sample of what I love about her writing…..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/03/hail-hail-rock-n-roll

However she also digresses into the stuff of life itself, and for that I am grateful. Here’s Laura reflecting (from London) on her North of England roots:

I missed the nights out. The swell and the sprawl of them, the way Friday and Saturday night demanded you get dressed up and head out coatless, the better to flaunt your feathers. I missed the end of the night, the couples snogging in the streets, the chip shops, the brawls even, the hilarity of late-night bus rides, the sing-songs on the last train home, the voice, low and flat and dismal, calling out over the taxi radio: “Hall Green. Birch Green. Upholland.”

I missed the colour of the leaves that seemed to grow a darker, dearer green than those of the south. I missed the dour beauty of a region that was once the nation’s industrial heartland, the mills, the mines, the blackened bricks, the canals, the way the landscape is scarred by the past – the rope-burns on the towpath bridges, the old pit-shafts, quarries, disused railways, the strange deformities of a land that has been tunnelled and burrowed and shifted and finally left to settle. I missed the voices. I missed the music of chuck, and love, and lad. I missed the cursing, the insults, the ruddy and bloody and wazzock and gobbin. I missed the sound of the rain and the smell of the pavements as it dried. I missed the light, the shift of the clouds, the flat grey sky, the thrill of a hot day. I missed its kindness. And often I thought of that line by Tennyson: “Bright and fierce and fickle is the south/ And dark and true and tender is the north.”

Laura has also written an excellent debut novel pertaining to some of these themes .

But mainly we’re going to talk about music and country music in particular. I think you’ll enjoy it.

“What are you going to play us Rick?,” I hear you plead.

There will be some new music from Dylan LeBlanc, Frazey Ford, something from The Pines and we’ll explore the weirdly wonderful world of Rory Erikson. Not enough? In that case you’ll appreciate that we’re celebrating the anniversary of the first million selling Country single.

It’s all on Radio Scotland, Friday at 8.

Wow  – that went quickly. Six weeks have passed and I hope you have enjoyed some time in the company of the fair Edith Bowman.

I’ve been enjoying this view…..

For my money I’ve been enjoying loads of other music over the last few weeks. It’s been nice to play Eminem, Band of Horses,The Bombay Bicycle Club and a whole load of soul. Have to confess that the joys of Radio 3 and Classic Fm have also been figuring highly on our radios at home. I am now the owner of a portable Digital radio – that’s a real joy.

During our recess I went to London to do some song-writing. It was that week that Tom Jones was in town doing promo for his new Praise and Blame album. You may well have run across this story in the press. Whatever you have read is immaterial. Tom has made, in my opinion, a really great record. Whenever  I heard it on his website I knew it would be right for Another Country. So that week in London I met up with Tom and spent 40 minutes in his company while his band were preparing for their Radio session at Maida Vale. We talked about Elvis, Church, Ethan Johns and the wonderful selection of songs on the new album. If you need to be convinced just listen to his version of Bob Dylan’s “What Good Am I?” and be converted. If you think Tom Jones is the last person you expected to hear on my show, then think again. If someone had told me a year ago I’d be talking to him I’d have been fairly sceptical. But Brother and Sisters – hold that thought, cast out your doubting and bring yourselves to the alter. It’s the church of Tom Jones this Friday and you’d best believe it’s going to be good.

Still need convincing? Check this this.

There’s lots of new things too…. The Caitlin Rose new album has arrived………….

………..and comes out very soon and we’ll bring you all the latest news of gigs coming to Scotland over the late summer.

Of course this mean you’ll have to tune in to Radio Scotland on Friday 6th August at 8 p.m. for the new series of Another Country.

• And the thing is this: this is the last show for six weeks. Over the summer I intend to do things like this…….

It’s been an interesting week. I’ve been to two gigs…kind of. I thought I was going to see Phosphorescent’s last few numbers last Friday. When I arrived I realised they hadn’t been on stage yet. It had been a long day, and I really had to get home so I stayed for 3 songs…all of which were increasingly wonderful. Eventually I had to tear myself away but it looked as if it was heading to be a good night.

On Tuesday Willie Nelson came to Glasgow and , yes, it was a memorable evening. Highlights….well I’ll talk a lot about that on Friday so stay tuned. On Wednesday I got a call from Richard telling me there was an appointment for us in Edinburgh if we were free. I’ll tell you about that appointment too on Friday.

So this Friday we welcome another great Nashville songwriter, Gretchen Peters.

Gretchen – like Willie – has found more initial success as a writer for other artists. However she is a powerful performer in her own right and she is personally responsible for an emotional night. Three ears ago I experienced the Bluebird Cafe for the first time. At a round with Tia Sillers, Mark Selby another guy whose name I can’t remember and Gretchen. I sat at a lonely table nursing a cold beer and let the tears fall down my face as I listened to wave upon wave of song upon heartfelt song. Maybe it was the music – maybe the beer – or perhaps it was my being so far from home. Maybe it was the music of Gretchen connecting deeply…..you can decide on Friday. She performed three songs and we had a lengthy chat about..most things. In case you didn’t know , she also wrote this one.

What else? You do need to get those Alternative Americana Awards to me as we will have one last hurrah before the summer. Next week will be the last Another Country for six weeks. I’m going to let you all have a break from me and get a chance to save up for the records you’ll be buying in the second half of the year. I’ll have music from

First Aid Kit, Micah P Hanson, Phosphorescent and that The Acorn song I mentioned last week. We’ll also try to sneak some Nanci Griffith and certainly play you some stand outs from Willie Nelson’s visit to Scotland. Lastly – here’s a new one for you that’s crept onto my radar this week. Larkin Poe.