Ricky's Radio Blog

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.