Ricky's Radio Blog

For the second year we are hosting a Bluebird Cafe stye ‘In The Round’ to celebrate Celtic Connections. It all takes place in the foyer of the BBC building on Glasgow’s Pacific Quay and the backdrop to the stage is the River Clyde, The Finnieston Crane and the Armadillo. This year we are playing hosts to two good friends of the programme and someone with whom we’ve wanting to get more acquainted for some time.

Mary Gauthier will be visiting us for the third time and I honestly believe she is more welcome because of that.

Mary first visited us during CC a few years back and her story is one of the most remarkable of any musician I know. Born and raised in New Orleans, Mary ended up in Boston working as a cook before, at quite a late age, discovering she wanted to write songs and sing her own songs. What songs too! Mercy (recently covered by Candi Staton) and her autobiographical ‘I Drink’ are modern classics. It doesn’t stop there. Mary’s most recent record, The Foundling, chronicles her search for her natural birth mother. Produced by Michael Timmins from Canada’s own Cowboy Junkies it’s a remarkable record by any reckoning. The story isn’t always straight forward, so I’ll let Mary tell you herself this Friday.

She will be joined by another old friend, Ben Glover.

Ben and Mary wrote together to create the brilliant opening track, Full Moon Child for Ben’s second album ‘Through The Noise, Through The Night.’ Since then they have toured together and I’d imagine have at least talked about writing together again. Ben’s originally from Antrim in the north of Ireland but is now a resident of Nashville where he’s been working as a song writer and performer for the last three years or so. No stranger to the round, Ben will be sharing songs from his new album ‘Before the Birds.’ Since then there’s been a new single “Whatever Happens Will” and if Ben doesn’t play it there will be trouble from my side of the stage….it’s that good.

Finally a man who has made a huge impression by going back to the music of the early part of the last century. Of course regular AC listeners will know that this is something we do fairly often ourselves – the difference here being that CW Stoneking writes his own repertoire and plays the songs on his own dobro. You might expect a chap like this to hail from somewhere within a chuckie’s length of the Mississippi Delta, but he hails from  Northern Australia. Now resident in the UK we will hear CW’s brilliant music and ask him how he connected back to these times to create such an authentic recreation and re imagining of the sound of the south.

It’s all live from the foyer this Friday and if you want to join us then you can still. Although the show is sold out we keep some places for friends of the blog so just write to me rickyross@bbc.co.uk or post a message up on the AC Facebook site and we’ll keep you a place. As ever it all starts at five past eight on Friday evening on BBC Radio Scotland.

Sunday Morning With..

I’ll be on again on Sunday airwaves again on the 5th February when I’ll be talking to Alain de Botton about his new book ‘Religion for Atheists.’ You may have heard Alain wants to build a temple in London – and he’s serious. Unlike some other atheists (who I can’t be bothered mentioning again) he likes a lot of what he finds in religion and wonders if secular society can learn a few things from people of faith.

A couple of weeks ago my eldest daughter returned from an amazing few months in Cairo and dropped a brilliant book on my desk. “Taxi” she told me “Is the book you need to read to understand what went on last January.” She was right.

It’s a very moving account of conversations taken in rides around Cairo by Khaled Al Khamissi between himself and some of the drivers of Cairo’s 80,000 taxis. It shows a country of deep divisions, devastating poverty but remarkable resilience. We’ll talk to Khaled on Sunday about what things are like now in Egypt a year on from the revolution. We’ll also hear why next week not only leads to St Valentine’s Day but is also Marriage Week. We’ll find out what makes a healthy marriage, what keeps people together and why it’s still so very popular. Lots more as well as music from the artists who have made Celtic Connections such a special festival these last couple of weeks. Join me, if you can, this Sunday morning from 7 on BBC Radio Scotland or catch it on the i player.

Mr Murdoch and I sometimes spend time thinking aloud. What if we just did a radio show like we normally do?…(yes)…records, a guest or two..(yes) but we invite the audience along..? Yes! I know, it’s really not very clever at all but we never claimed to be at the cutting edge on the ideas front. We really like playing some country records and talking to some artists whose music we love. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do on Friday and we’re so grateful that the phenomenon that is Celtic Connections gives us the opportunity. So we’ll welcome a young man who has taken his music over to the USA and brought some good things back. Dean Owens has just recorded a new album which he recorded here and New York City. He was kind enough to let me hear some of it early and I’ve really been looking forward to its release. That day is coming soon and you can hear him play tracks from the album from our live foyer show this week. If you think don’t know Dean’s music then listen out for Radio Scotland’s trail for Celtic Connections based around Dean’s ‘Raining in Glasgow’ being spoken over by me!

Apart from Dean, some country records, a bar, a great location I hear you say, ‘What else have you got?’ In the other hour of the show we will welcome two of the other stars of the opening week at Celtic Connections, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion. Essentially they are here to play at this week’s tribute to Woody at 100 tribute concert but we are delighted they are hanging around long enough to join us for our live broadcast down on the quay. I’ve already seen them perform this week at BBC’s Fruit Market show on Monday and I think it’s fair to say they won over the hearts of the audience there in a set including songs by Sarah Lee’s grandfather and some fine picks from their current album Bright Examples. Judge for yourselves on Friday but I’m sure you will be charmed.

On the subject of the Guthrie family, I went down on Wednesday to see the Woody at 100 night. This was a little mismatched. Johnny and Sarah lee were again on sparkling form as was the main headline act of Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Anders Parker (Gob Iron) and Will Johnson(Monsters of Folk). They played almost their entire album ‘New Multitudes’ which sets discovered Woody songs to new music. This was mostly really beautiful but I could tell that was really not quite the audience was expecting and the minimal indie mumbled intros really didn’t help engage the slightly bemused audience. A little bit of older Woody material would have gone a long way to making it a great night. So the challenge is there…..put a better one on. Here they are in full too-cool-for-school pose with Jim James (who wasn’t there last night)…Honestly guys, believe me…it may never happen!

As ever we will celebrate new music; First Aid Kit and Kathleen Edwards,(thanks Marek!) point you to some significant key records from the last ….oh eighty years or so and play something over the night you might just have forgotten about. If you haven’t yet got plans this Friday then it’s not too late. All the tickets have gone but we always keep a space for friends of the show…as for friends of the blog…..I think you know we have a special place in our hearts for you folks. In the flesh or on the air, join us this Friday at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

My daughter just went out of the house for lunch……it’s nearly 4 o’clock. Kids huh.

On her way out I was trying to contain my excitement about the news she’d just shared. ‘Oh Dad, remember that band I told you about?’ (No….but I say …’Yes, sure.’ ‘I’m going to see them at King Tuts. I bought a ticket, it was only £9.’

You could have heard my heart beating faster a block away. Paying to go to see a new band….my children? What next, buying albums? Steady.

It’s a funny thing encouraging rock activities for your offspring. I find myself uttering absurd sentences like ‘ Why don’t you hook up your ipod to the stereo so it can play louder?’ Or  ’Melt that ride cymbal a bit more so it comes through.’ Or even… ‘ Check The Strokes, they do it best.’ I don’t think they’ll remember it that way. The youngest was recently heard shouting at an older sibbling, ‘Ha ha – you’re going in dad’s car. You’ll have to listen to country music for two hours.’ True – but nevertheless hurtful.

I say all this because a few months ago I was lucky enough to feel young again myself; I’d been in London for the day, done some work and was heading up to Camden Town to see My Morning Jacket play at the Roundhouse. It was all so perfect…I missed the openers but managed to stash all my bags in the cloakroom, got myself a drink and stood in a fine spot on the floor ready to catch the band. I quite like going on my own occasionally too. There’s never that problem of looking round at your wife/pal/relative hoping they aren’t glazing over. Tonight this was particularly relevant. When the lead singer/guitarist performs a lengthy solo with a towel over his head you know it’s going to stretch the patience of all but the committed fans or those who have come to rock. It’s a while since I’ve enjoyed rock indulgence so much, but I was loving it. It was loud but equally blissful and until the unexpected drum solo it seemed as if time had flown. Drum solo? No, it wasn’t meant to be; it was the PA cutting out. This happens….I’ve been onstage when it’s happened and it’s odd but usually requires a quick re set and you’re off again. However this was a fire alarm. We were on the street for the best part of an hour and by the time the gig licked off again I really had to leave and catch my night train back home. Standing in the rain in Camden I did wish someone had said, ‘Take a warm coat and an umbrella with you, you never know.’

On Friday we’ll hear what happened earlier in the day when I met up with Jim James, head honcho, be-towelled guitarist and long haired and bearded commander in chief of My Morning Jacket. We’ll hear why he’s Jim James and sometimes Yim Yames and, if you’ve not yet discovered why babbling old fogies like me were breathlessly facebooking, ‘Are My Morning Jacket the best band in the world right now?’ Honestly, you’re going to love it all.

We’ll hear some new music from these guys….

They are called Howler, and frankly I think they are great. If you loved Avi Buffalo a couple of years ago your heart will explode for Howler. We have new things from the equally fine First Aid Kit, the great Tom Russell (who comes in to see us next week) and we will continue to remind you of the great legacy of songs beqeathed to us by the late Woody Guthrie. As I’m sure you know by now, there will be so much more too. All from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland this Friday evening.

January…what’s not to love? The lethargy of Christmas holidays is over, the days get longer and in Glasgow…..there’s Celtic Connections. It’s also about the possibility of things and beginning again. I’m basically an optimist and I always like mornings, Mondays and beginnings. All things are possible and all things may well happen.

For the last few weeks we’ve fed you a diet of Another Country Greatest Hits. It’s good so many people enjoyed hearing the Dylan specials again and I got great feedback from friends about the Gillian Welch special too. As ever these special nights are lovingly researched and compiled by my producer Richard Murdoch. Both he and I are glad to be back live this Friday bringing you a veritable terrabyte or two of new music. We’ll hear from The Punch Brothers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion,  Jonathan Wilson and Jack White and we’ll also spend some time with the music and words of this man:

Josh T Pearson is the original a son-of-a-preacher-man from Texas. Having made one album with Lift To Experience he quietly disappeared. Last year (around this time) I had a pile of albums to listen to. Now when that’s a pile of albums you’ve gone out and bought with your Christmas Record Tokens it can be a joy. In this case however I knew none of the artists and I was hoping that along the way something would jump out and make me (metaphorically) pick up the needle and drop it back. That moment came in the unexpected beauty of  ‘The Last of The Country Gentlemen.’

One of the hardest things to do in any piece of art is to leave things out. They say you can tell a bad film by how much soundtrack is being used to pad it out….invariably true in my experience. In Josh’s case there’s so little there it would be difficult to know what to drop. The key is that the songs leave you mesmerised and inspired, the imagination is let loose and you are free to drift around in the debris of Josh’s aching laments. I think I enjoyed it in the way I first enjoyed the lonely nights I first spent round albums like On The Beach and Tonight’s The Night and as always with music we love at ACHQ there’s a hint of Hank….

You’ll hear Josh’s story on Friday – that is a moment to savour and you’ll hear him sing. He may make you cry but he will also certainly make you laugh. I don’t think we can broadcast the joke he told us involving Willie Nelson but if you catch me on a quiet moment at the Concert Hall over the next couple of weeks I’ll happily recall it for you.

And these next couple of weeks is when so many of our favourite artists come in to town.  Celtic Connections is going to be a great blast and you can expect to see me out at the Woody Show, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, Mary Gauthier, Laura Veirs and a whole load of things I’m forgetting about. You can join me live on Another Country, BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Friday evening.

I don’t want to bore you about how good Gilian Welch and Dave Rawlings were the other night, especially if you couldn’t make it. But there is something worthy of a little discussion here coming from that brilliant night: Interval Music. Who listens? Who picks it? How loud and how good should it be?

Gill and Dave’s selection was spot on. A less secure act would have thought twice about coming back on and even I did wonder at the what might come next….

Charlie Rich – Behind Closed Doors, The Louvin Brothers and two George Jones songs that were worth leaving your house for….. a risky game to play. I remember as a kid noticing some band playing the Last Record Album as a pre gig tape…..I thought they must be crazy, how could they top that. If memory serves me well, though, they did. Perhaps it’s the very act of raising the bar and saying ‘There is an entire Universe of  pop music out there and frankly, we feel that’s great but it’s inspired us to create …THIS!

People tell me the Alison Krauss show was also a great night at the Armadillo. I wonder what they played before they came on stage? Feel free to let me know. I know this much about that day…Alison was in fine form and chatting to us about everything. We talked early bluegrass days, her first solo adventures, picking songs, Robert Plant and of course ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou.’ She told us about T Bone and gave us a little insight into why a song might be cut by her and others left on the shelf. She has one of the sweetest voices in popular music, she is the recipient of 36 Grammys (at the last count) and she is a very nice person to be around. Experience Alison Krauss in full this Friday on Another Country.

We have new music from A.A. Bondy, My Darling Clementine, Crooked Still and a new solo project from Craig Finn. (from The Hold Steady) We’ll also dip into the Dylan album with one of the most iconic covers of all time …….

……..and play you where he was in 1963. It’s all in Another Country this Friday on BBC Radio Scotland. The fun starts at five past eight.

Well it feels like that to us. It had been trundling along nicely here at the AC. We had some guests and occasionally we decided we’d rather just play some records we loved. Then suddenly, as if from nowhere we received news that three of the biggest names in our kind of ‘country’ were to be visiting us within a couple of weeks of each other. We will broadcast the half hour chat I had with Alison Krauss in her dressing room very soon and Steve Earle’s interview and live gig will be our pre-Christmas treat on the 16th of December. Meanwhile you can catch what happened when Ryan Adams came to Glasgow recently on tomorrow night’s show.

Ryan’s got plenty to say and has also been good enough to play us some songs. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s all in hour two of the show this week. Did I mention I’ve got a great interview with Jim James from My Morning Jacket too?….Thought not.

Apart from all that, you say, what else have you got?  We are in to the final countdown on Bob Backwards and The Times They Are a Changin’. People who half-know Bob – and that is essentially me – will know loads of songs on this record. There’s the title track, With God On Our Side, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and When The Ship Comes In. On the cover Bob looks like a share-cropper but, although the songs are still topical and disaffected, the title works on two levels. Hear Bob about to turn tomorrow night.

We have some archive material that is suitably obscure and some new records by  The War on Drugs, Dave Alvin, Red Sky July and someone I’m just getting to know…Charlie Parr. If you are determined to listen to the radio this weekend remember I’ll be doing my last stint for Bob Harris on Sunday morning from midnight. Lots of great music including a live session from Cahalen Morrison and Eli West. If you’re not nocturnal you can use the break from league football to tune into Dermot O’Leary’s Radio 2 show on Saturday afternoon where I’ll be welcoming The Feeling and Jim James from My Morning Jacket. I know…it’s crazy this radio lark, but you get to meet some lovely people. It all starts Friday at five past eight on BBC Scotland.

I don’t know where to start but I’ll have a go:

Occasionally people (and it seems to me that this seems to be happening in a lovely way across the pond) seem to find it easier to cut themselves off and make gloriously isolated music. Over the last few years we’ve loved Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear and our old friends Richmond Fontaine who have all wallowed in their own sacred space. Their playgrounds were scattered throughout the northern states. So let’s add a new destination: Stillwater, Oklahoma. Home to this interesting collective:

Other Lives (for that is them) have done some good touring of late. Opening for Bon Iver across the west coast earlier in the year they quickly endeared themselves to Justin Vernon, his band and their followers. Now they are winning over European audiences and on Friday we will find out how all this has come about. One thing seems certain…if you want to get in on this cool act, grow your hair and don’t trim your beard.

We will also have some other great new things……including the new single from our faves, The Black Keys. I don’t like hyperbole but it’s TOTALLY GREAT.

We’ve got old things from Rick Nelson, Johnny Cash and Guy Clark. We also have lovely new things from Ash Mountain, Shelby Lynne and Kurt Vile. We’ll hear what Richard and I were doing this week and I’ll tell you all about the country roots of my new friend…Hal David.

Now I hear you say. What about Bob?  We are close to the end of our backwards epic journey. But we still have some significant landmarks to pass. This week it’s 1964 (As it was last week but we are still in Bob as a folk musician – though you can hear the rubs beginning to happen.) If this all sounds like gobbledygook  because you’ve just joined us then we’re playing Bob Dylan‘s entire catalogue backwards and this week we will listen to….

It will all in colour and on your radio…now how do we do that? Join us on Friday at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland to find out.

So spake the wise St Andrew….no, not that one…Dundee’s patron saint. Created by Andy Pell his songs celebrate the greatness of being in the moment and , well….being from Dundee. I tell you all of this by way of introducing the three people who fill my thoughts this week: Ally McErlaine, Steve Earle and Ryan Adams. Steve and Ryan are people who have ‘lived a bit’ and their own stories will unfold later in the series after I speak to them both this week. Two years ago not even Ally himself or his wife Shelley would have predicted  he would be here to talk about his new album.

In the summer of 2009 Ally his wife Shelley Poole and fiddler and singer Charity Hair were planning to make an album under the banner of Red Sky July. They were two days into an agreement with producer Rory Carlile when Ally was struck by a potentially fatal aneurism. What happened next was the project was quietly shelved as Ally remained in hospital unconscious for three months. No one knew what would happen next but gladly for all of us Ally, Shelley and Charity will be with us on Friday to show that this was a story with a very happy ending. It will be one of these very special AC nights when we rush down from our home studio on the 4th floor to Studio One  to be in the room with our live guests who will be performing songs from their excellent debut record. I can’t wait and am so glad to welcome an old friend to the programme.

There will be so much more. We meet the point in Bob Backwards where his recordings reach the great folk/rock crossroads. Bringing it All Back Home from 1964 was one half electric and one half acoustic – we know what happened next – so what was the reaction to this one? How good was it and what changed? We’ll try to talk about all of that and listen to the evidence.

Also – great new music from Strange Boys, Alana Del Ray, Jeffrey Lewis and Tom Waits. We’ll get your news on Scottish shows by Wilco, Steve Earle, Ryan Adams and that Bon Iver gig and we’ll play music from all these fine artists.

Is that enough…..? If it’s not you can drop in on Sunday morning on Radio 2  in the Bob Harris Show when I have four hours to play you almost everything I can think of. Join me if you can this Friday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight.

This Friday we celebrate live music. For the next few months Scotland will host  an amazing line-up of visitors with whom the listener to Another Country will be very familiar. First up we need to mention this ensemble…..

Steve Earle is coming to Glasgow next week. On Friday’s show we’ll bring you some very interesting news about Steve, Glasgow and The AC. Here’s the official blurb…..

After many years of touring solo and acoustically worldwide, Earle will be touring in support of the new album with his electric live band, The Dukes (and Duchesses) featuring Allison Moorer.

Also coming to these parts: Ryan Adams (Edinburgh)

Glen Campbell (All of Scotland), Alison Krauss (Glasgow), Wilco (Glasgow) and our old friend Diana Jones who is coming in to Glasgow to play at the Fallen Angels Club at the CCA on 29th October.  Also we’re getting very excited about Other Lives visit to The Captain’s Rest next Tuesday…

However on Friday we will also pause to celebrate this album:

Highway 61 Revisited is a landmark record in so many ways. Firstly seeks to beautifully upset the delicate balance of Bringing It All Back’s home acoustic/electric two sides by dispensing with any attempt to please the folkies. For that reason alone it is worth celebrating Bob Backwards all year. Great folk music listens, adapts and changes. But sadly, in my experience, folk purists often remember the first two rules but forget to change and round on those who do. Rather like the church or the aristocracy, folk music has a habit of pointless resistance to change. At its best of course it is a dynamic force for good but sadly when it comes to poker-faced earnest devotees of folk who harangued Dylan for ‘going electric’ I’m on the side of Bob every time. So let’s go with him and embrace the shock of the new. One of the things I love about this period is that one is often tempted to assume in these God-awful X Factored times that anything massively popular has to be bad. With Highway 61 and Like A Rolling Stone Bob Dylan hit the Zeitgeist perfectly. He made brilliant art and blistering pop music that people bought in droves. It’s worth remembering it can be done.

Finally on a Friday when we celebrate so much live music it is hugely significant that this Dylan album hosted three out of fourteen songs Bob played live a couple of weeks ago in Glasgow. Highway 61, Like A Rolling Stone and Desolation Row. Pretty good huh.!

Nae Luck

That’s what they say when a rival team beats yours up here north of Hadrian’s wall. It’s the commiseration offered under your breath when the ostentatious Range-Rover-driving neighbour scrapes the chariot off the gate-post and, frankly, it’s the best I can offer to all this Friday’s artists whose name doesn’t start with Ro…and end in immerman.

If you have a new record out this week, good luck. But heck I can only wish for you that it had been a few weeks back when we had Self Portrait, or months ago when we were exploring Saved. Pity for you that it hasn’t coincided with Under The Red Sky – we’d have had all the time in the world then. But for the next three weeks we arrive at the reasons why Another Country’s year-long pilgrimage would ever take place. Three great landmark albums by the towering figure of modern folk, rock and roots music….let’s call it for what it is...Americana. For me Bob Dylan defines the genre and if you ever had any doubt just witness what the ripe trees of Autumn are bestowing upon us: Blonde On Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home.

This is not just a purple patch of records my friend, this is a man writing a new rule book on popular music. These albums contained the blueprints to songs, styles, attitudes and sonic sculpture bands and artists would try to emulate over the next 40 years. Some would hope the magic would brush off on them if they copied their stylings and titles…..the guilty parties know who they are….some would hope to emulate the ambition, but no one in the succeeding decades has come close to the colossal impact of these records. Perhaps it was the times: The Beach Boys were re writing another script, The Beatles were leading a popular art revolution and year on year every thing we thought was right was being turned on its head. Not a bad time to be alive. In the middle of it all a man who had rightly been embraced by the folk community was showing them he no longer wished to be contained. Nothing would be the same again. It’s special stuff……and over these next few weeks we’ll try to make it feel that way.

But there’s  always more:

New and wonderful things from Tom Waits, hidden gems from The Dixie Chicks and dark beauty stuff from the album I’m listening to now; Bonnie Prince Billy.

Richard has also found you some great music from Kitty Wells and Loretta Lynn which might well make our good friend Stevie think…..Heck, I’ve opened my eyes, it is country music and I like it. Decide for yourself on Friday at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged continued Blog-Roll…….It carries on unfettered. I am also sitting in for the great Bob Harris on his late Saturday/early Sunday show on Radio 2 for the next 5 weeks. It’s such a pleasure and I have some great guests….so if you can’t sleep Saturday, you know where to find me.

Join me on Friday if you can.