It’s moving to see the pictures from Normandy this Sunday. We spent a lot of time catching up on the D Day stories there some years ago on a family holiday. Showing the photographs to her friend our youngest daughter explained, ‘That’s a graveyard. We usually went to one of these every day.’

We were travelling through Normandy in early August. When we remarked on the beautiful skies and moon we were seeing, one of our travelling companions, more attuned to the ways of the countryside, pointed out that we were seeing the residue of the harvest. So fertile is the land around that part of Northern France that there are two harvests and the sky was simply coloured by the dust coming from the wheat and barley fields being gathered in.

I thought of this ‘early harvest’ when we started selecting songs for our half yearly round up. I have always felt there is much to celebrate in new music and 2021 has proved to be no different. Each week we’ve found new artists and been delighted by familiar names returning with new projects. On this week’s Another Country we’ll spend two hours playing songs we’ve broadcast over the last few months and all of them are worthy of repeat plays.

We are delighted to include names we didn’t know last year at this time. Listen out for Hailey Whitters (above), Lainey Wilson and Stephanie Lambring. Listen out too for some fine returns from Israel Nash, Valerie June, Eric Church and Alan Jackson. It’s great to know the artists we have loved so long are still surprising us with fresh new music.

You might also be interested to know there’s now a new strand available on BBC Sounds. Over the last few years I’ve recorded some lengthy conversations with some significant artists. Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney, Joan Armatrading, Jim Kerr and Elvis Costello are just some of the names in the occasional Ricky Ross Meets series on BBC Radio Scotland. We’ve now established a permanent home for all of the programmes in the series and they will eventually all be available all year round as podcasts.

Even as I write I am still planning more of these recordings for future weeks and when they appear on the radio they can now also be listened to beyond the normal 30 day limit of BBC Sounds. So, look for and follow the Ricky Ross Meets link here and you can soon enjoy some great songwriters talking about their musical lives.

Meanwhile tune in this Tuesday for that half year round up which I am certain you will enjoy, even if, quite reasonably, you’ll almost certainly have a few records that you think should have been included. We’re on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight and BBC Sounds wherever and whenever you fancy.

“I think it started when I joined a jam band.” You just know when someone, whose been making singer-songwriter solo albums for the last twenty five years or so starts with that explainer for his new album, you need to lean in a bit.

The conversation I recorded with Todd Snider a few weeks ago when his new album, ‘First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder,’ came out was as enjoyable a chat as I’ve enjoyed all year. Todd is a poet, a prophet and quite possibly the voice we most need to hear coming out of the southern states of the USA right now. I talked to him a day after the one year anniversary of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and I knew there was much of that terrible day which had helped shape his thinking for the record.  On the song, ‘Battle Hymn of The Album,’ he channels the old story of the Civil War and John Brown’s soldiers still marching on into a chant of ‘Get down on the ground.’  America’s legacy of slavery and segregation is front and central in all of this and the irony that Todd (a white southerner) uses African American funk to tell this story is not lost on him. What you will hear from the conversation however, is his deep respect of where that music came from.

On the album Todd takes on the character of a preacher, which in real life he became, to carry out the wedding ceremony of the current King and Queen of Americana, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. All of that came out of a deep friendship that grew between the three of them a couple of albums back. It was lovely to hear Todd talk in such glowing terms about the young group of country/Americana artists who’ve given us so much pleasure over the last few years. As well as Jason and Amanda he talks in glowing terms about Margo Price, Kacey Musgraves, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Sierra Ferrell and, of course, Chris Stapleton. There’s also a great tribute to the great Eric Church where Todd compares Nashville today to the halcyon period of the seventies when the mainstream and the alternative were finding common ground in fresh new ways. Amen to all of that.

There’s so much more in the conversation with Todd in the chat you can hear on this week’s AC. Listen out too to his delight at Tom Jones recent cover of a song from his last album, ‘Talking Reality Television Blues.’

There’s more though, so much more on this week’s show. Listen out for new music from Alan Jackson, Hailey Whitters and something else from the excellent new album by Allison Russell. We think you’ll enjoy discovering Lady Nade and will welcome Teddy Thompson and Jenni Muldaur‘s new tribute to Porter and Dolly. 

All of this is available from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening or whenever you like on BBC Sounds. Look out soon too for my Ricky Ross Meets series becoming available any time, anywhere as part of BBC Podcasts. If you want to keep me company, I’m sure you’ll know where to find me.

It’s 2007 and I am driving back to Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve gone from Music City on a bright Saturday morning and managed to have a whirlwind twenty-four hours in Memphis taking in The Lorraine Motel, Gracelands, Beale Street and The Stax Museum.

I’d vowed to myself earlier in the year that I had finished with collecting physical copies of albums and was all geared up to go digital. By the time I’d spent my first week in Nashville that vow had been well and truly broken and on my return from Memphis I was realising I needed to buy and check-in another suitcase for the albums I’d purchased. The Stax Museum had brought another haul which was sitting on the passenger seat as I made my way north and east back to the country capital. A friend had mentioned Buddy Miller’s recent production of Solomon Burke’s Nashville album and I’d found a copy in the gift shop at Stax. It was there, breezing along Interstate 40 and taking in the scenery I first heard Tom T Hall’s ‘That’s How I Got To Memphis.’

Since then, I, and you too if you spend any time listening to country music, will have encountered the songs and the voice of Tom T Hall many times. A year after that drive on I 40 Hall was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame. If this felt a little late in his career he explained it by citing the fact that he wasn’t well loved by the songwriters of Nashville as he didn’t collaborate, but chose to write songs by himself. I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Tom’s opinion here as I’m pretty sure some of these great songs might never have come to be heard had it not been for the individuality of his genius. Solomon Burke got it, Tammy Wynette, George Jones and Gram Parsons too and hopefully, if you’ve not heard his music already, you too will be wishing Tom T Hall a hearty congratulations on his 85 years in this world this Tuesday.

As well as blowing out some candles on Tom’s cake we’ll mark the passing of another great artist who we lost some thirty years ago this week. Gene Clark was an original Byrd whose music is still cherished by the wider music community beyond country, folk and Americana. If all this doesn’t make you tune in you might like a little journey we are making through southern blues courtesy of The Black Keys whose new album, Delta Kream is simply that. Listen out too for new things from Robert Finley, Allison Russell, Todd Snider and Son Volt. If you haven’t heard last week’s Bob Dylan special there is still time and we have Emma Swift to remind you how great his song writing really is.

It’s a packed two hours of new music and some classic country cuts all hand picked to bring you some late May joy. You can find the show this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight. Join me if you can.

Not knowing where to start with Bob Dylan is probably the best place to start this week.

Ten years ago, on the AC, we started a year long celebration of Dylan by playing something from every album in reverse order of their release date. By then we were up to Together Through Life and, lest we forget too, Christmas In the Heart. It was fun for me to spend a part of each week over the year 2011/2012 listening back to a Bob album. I knew the eighties were going to be tougher than other decades but I was delighted to find gems along the way in albums I’d never really listened to, and others, to which I had simply, not listened nearly enough. If you have been with our show before and since that time you might well remember the centrepiece of the year being the night we played Blood On The Tracks from beginning to end. We are still proud of that little radio moment.

What we avoided then and what we want to avoid as we approach Bob’s 80th birthday is any sense that we know or value particular periods of Dylans’s back catalogue more than others. Chewing over the merits of one period, album, tour, version, backing band are really for other people at another time. For me and for the AC, Bob Dylan represents much of what we hope to celebrate in roots music. He is a great singer and songwriter who has helped to define, but more significantly, change the popular music of the last one hundred years or so. It may well be that it takes a good bit of this century for people to recognise how significant his impact has really been.

Folk music of the 50s and 60s was the crucible from which the art of Bob Dylan was born. Not content to stay within such a defined compound, he broke out by the simple act of momentum at every turn. Where others were content to revisit, Bob explored new territory. Where contemporaries plateaued Bob kept reaching higher and when we imagined there was nowhere new to ascend he would take extraordinary diversions of faith, style and, in the most unexpected twist of all, a third act coup de theatre, he comes back on stage as the singer and chronicler of the American songbook. He becomes, as he said he would many years before, a Song and Dance Man.

On Another Country we are keen to play music which, not only sounds like the genre, but we also love to celebrate that which could not possibly exist without its spreading back to the folk, hillbilly traditions which inspired it. If there was no Jimmie Rogers there would be no Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Wanda Jackson or Elvis Presley. Bob knew and valued them all but so much more. We know how much he loves John Lee Hooker, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Karen Dalton or The Clancy Brothers. If, like me, you loved the Theme Time Radio Hour you’d know how much Bob still loves music and, annoyingly, was easily the best DJ ever.

So this Tuesday as we prepare to celebrate eighty years of Bob Dylan’s presence here on planet earth on May 24th I will give you two hours of favourite Bob tracks which try to convey a little of that broad sweep of creativity. There will be folk, gospel, country and even some swing. There will be songs of weary cynicism, songs of discovery, joy, longing and love. There will be prophetic warning and late night regret as we work our way through a catalogue of creativity like no other and for which there is no let up in adoration by admirers of all ages in all countries in the world. He is the holder of Grammys, Fellowships, Medals of Congress, Doctorates and The Nobel Prize. In all of that he rarely steps outside Harlan Howard‘s wise maxim of ‘three chords and the truth’ and for all of that we are, truly, grateful.

Join me for a special celebration this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight or any time you choose, anywhere in the world, on BBC Sounds.

Last week, the first week any of us were allowed to stay away from home, we took a short holiday. It wasn’t far away, the weather was pretty mixed and we ate fish ‘n’ chips at least twice. It wasn’t the Cote D’Azur or some exotic Caribbean island but I think it may have been one of the most anticipated and best breaks I’ve enjoyed in a long while. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have experienced some of those feelings recently.

One of the best things was to be able to get in the car and take off without the feeling we couldn’t venture any further than our council boundary. On our return some friends asked us to pay them a visit to their newly built holiday hut facing over the Southern Uplands about an hour or so from Glasgow. We enjoyed a warm spring evening outside their little woodland paradise catching up on old stories before driving home through the gloaming down the Clyde valley. The good Jamie McDougall was spinning his Classics Unwrapped and we took in the breathtaking beauty of the sunset to some gorgeous music as we faced north and west again. Having had a holiday then a bonus day out I felt a little like our old AC friend, Tift Merrit, when she sung how much she longed to stay on for a couple of days on her song, ‘Feeling of Beauty.’ Sometimes it feels like time should just stand still.

That’s perhaps where music comes in. Play the song again and suddenly you are there. I have been playing a beautiful string piece I heard on Jamie’s show this morning and imagining that journey as I listen; and I may just need to play it again and again over the next few months. Taking ourselves out of where we have been may be the thing we need most right now. We’ve been stuck in one place for a long time and we all need a little room to roam. If you can’t roam yet, let me recommend the radio to you. Should you still be without the means or time to get away we hope to take you on little journeys of the mind on every show we’re on air. Songs about places we’ve never been, people we haven’t met yet or heartbreak we’ve been spared; they’re all in our regular two hours on any given Tuesday.

You can listen at home, out of doors or just cruising around wherever you happen to be going. This week you’ll hear bluegrass from Sturgill Simpson, new songs from Dean Owens, Ashley Ray, Kalie Shorr and Saint Sister. Listen out too for Ashley Monroe (a future guest) duetting with Trent Dabbs on his new single. It’s a song co written with one of our guests from a couple of years back, Anderson East. There will be something new from Anderson too. It’s a show packed with great songs you’ll want to play wherever you are. Join me from eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM or on BBC Sounds if you can.

I’ve been trying to write a song called, Frozen Yogurt Friday. In all truth? I haven’t, I’m relieved to say. It went round my head a few different times over the last year or so though. It came from a late spring afternoon I once spent on my own in Franklin, Tennessee. It was Friday and I was far from home, so I became a little sentimental.

I drove out to Franklin at the end of my writing week in Nashville and parked the car near the old presbyterian church in the centre of the town which still has landmarks to the battle there during the civil war. On the church itself there’s a plaque commemorating the aftermath when so many soldiers were sent there to be treated in, what was, a makeshift field hospital. The old cannons, flag poles and historic tablets were in stark contrast to the joyous scenes unfolding in front of me on that warm afternoon. People had finished work or school and families were strolling past the shops, looking at the coming attractions at the small cinema and queueing idly at the Frozen Yogurt store where any amount of sugared extras could be added to the dessert of your choice. The sun was still shining and any cars that did pass were moving slow, with the windows or the tops down. I finished my ice cream and browsed round a little antique shop from which I could almost have bought any number of things were it not for the knowledge that my suitcase for home was already over weight with vinyl.

I was the outsider that day and I felt it. This was a scene of suburban happiness, contentment and an ease in which the town seemed to congregate, recognise each other and make small talk as they passed by on the small square of downtown streets. I, on the other hand, was a tourist who felt as if I was imposing on a private celebration.

I’ve thought often on that afternoon during the last year. Over the summer of 2020 I looked longingly at people enjoying outside cafes or even eating or drinking inside bars and restaurants near where I live. The lights would be on over the alfresco tables as I drove past on my way to visit my late mother in the hospital. I’d realised I couldn’t join in for fear I’d be tracked and traced by my phone Covid App which would then forbid me to be with her when she needed me most. It was poignant too driving back through late in the evening when there was still a light buzz of enjoyment in the air and I’d think to myself, ‘it’s just like frozen yogurt Friday that time in Franklin.’

So, on this happy week, when we are at last allowed a little more freedom to meet, eat and even drink a little I want to wish you well. It has been a long time coming and we deserve some enjoyment, however restricted, in our lives.

For my part I am going to enjoy playing you some great music to go with your week before I take my first holiday for a good long while. Listen out especially for new things from Thomas Rhett, Lainey Wilson and our recent guest, Eric Church as we remind you of those ACM Awards last week. Yola’s back and we have some really special tracks from Charlie Worsham, Tom Jones and Todd Snider, who is paying a great tribute to John Prine.

As ever we are on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening from five past eight and BBC Sounds whenever you fancy. Join me if you can.

Like many aspects of Country Music, I took a while to get it. I’m slow sometimes, so forgive me. Despite hearing Springsteen (Eric Church’s massive Country No 1) back in 2011 I never really connected with it. It really wasn’t until Eric released The Outsiders in 2014 that I really got it.

It was a song about a motor racing event, not something I’d have predicted, but when Taladega came along I knew I’d fallen for Eric Church and everything he’d released started to make sense. I had to brief up a bit to conduct that face to face interview we had at C2C in the Quay back in 2016, but as I worked my way through these back pages I knew I was smitten. Then came the true conversion. If you’re going to get Eric you really need to go to Church. That night at C2C Eric brought the Church to Glasgow and a room full of disparate country lovers became a crowd of true believers.

Since then Eric Church has gone from strength to strength. He’s released a series of compelling albums which have nestled comfortably on Country Radio but still asked the questions and shown the aching vulnerability that are hallmarks of EC’s best work. He’s also become one of the biggest selling recording and live artists working in America. In 2017 he embarked on one of the most ambitious tours ever when he and his regular road band decided to make each night on the tour a unique concert experience for every member of the audience. Any two nights would be different with the exception of a clutch of songs even Eric couldn’t omit. You can hear all of that on the 61 Days of Church albums which are available in all the usual places.

However what interests me about Eric Church’s career is his ability to do what he wants in his own time with the added bonus that it coincides perfectly with what his audience want to hear on their country radio stations. Other artists will tell you that this is what they’ve been doing for years but in Eric’s case it really is true. Since day one too, Eric’s not been afraid to ask questions of the music genre he clearly loves. He’s encouraged and supported other artists (viz Ashley McBryde and Luke Combs) he’s kept his own people with him all the way and he’s done it in style. The next Eric Church tour will take him 18 months to complete.

In a very special two hours we’ll spend an hour reminding you how we got here with a selection of great EC tracks from these first 15 years of his career. In the second hour you’ll hear a conversation I recorded with Eric a couple of weeks back in which he tells how unsatisfied he was with one of his later projects, how this incredible new triple album, Heart and Soul, came about and why the personal tragedies affecting of two of his cowriters made such an impression on these songs. Did I finally get Springsteen? Late to the party, as ever, but I got it and love it.

You will know I am a fan already. If you’re not yet converted let me invite you to Church. It’s this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM or any time you like on BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

….and Country Music will do that for you.’

Oh how true that is. I wish I could come up with something as good as that as quickly but the credit goes to Chuck Prophet who gave it out for free in an interview with us a few years back. The thing is…..it’s true.

If that quote doesn’t resonate then let me offer you some of my favourite bon mots and see if you can identify where they are from:

Put if off until tomorrow…you hurt me enough today

On one hand I count the reasons I could stay with you and hold you close to me, all night long. So many lover’s games I could play with you and on that hand I see no reason why it’s wrong

The moments of pleasure never do last they’re gone like a suitcase full of your past

Son, I’ve made a life out of readin’ people’s faces knowin’ what the cards were by the way they held their eyes

So if you don’t mind my sayin’ I can see you’re out of aces

I want her long blond hair, I want her magic touch, yeah, ’cause maybe then you’d want me just as much

If you are true country fans I think you’ll find most of these are pretty easy, but the joy of country music for me is finding classics I didn’t know had been there all along. I hope each week on the radio we point you to some people you may have never known and want to hear more. If we do, just keep passing on the love. Country music is made for sharing.

One of these lyrics is written by a young singer songwriter from East Tennessee who came to Music City to write songs with her uncle. You probably know Dolly Parton but perhaps know a little less about her Uncle Bill Owens who died last week aged 85. We’ll pay our own tribute this week. We’ll also have a great answer song to Dolly’s most famous hit, Jolene from New Orleans’ Chapel Hart.

You’ll also hear songs from the stars of tomorrow. We’re very excited about Hailey Whitters, Lainey Wilson and Sean McConnell. We’ll have bluegrass from Joe Mullins and The Radio Ramblers as well as a beautiful bluegrass version of a John Prine song by Sierra Hull one year on from John’s death last year.

I don’t know too if you have caught up with the recent series of Ricky Ross Meets? The shows are going out on a Saturday evening at 6 p.m. on BBC Radio Scotland. There are already two great hours with Gary Barlow and Paul Carrack available on BBC Sounds now and this week’s hit-heavy hour is with 10cc‘s very own Graham Gouldman. They are all multi-talented artists who will delight you if, as I’m sure you do, you love the craft of making music.

As ever we plan to pack all this into two hours of radio joy. We’ll be on air from five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or any time you like on BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

One of the joys of watching films and TV shows over the last year has been to visit (in my imagination) places I have been before. Apart from the delightful elements of farce and faux tragedy in the four series of Call My Agent I took great comfort in hanging around in Paris for a while. There’s been many evenings when something on the TV has introduced a walk-on part for the Brooklyn Bridge, Malibu beach or the Pacific Coast Highway and brought more joy than they should. Heck, recently news items or friends’ shared pictures of other parts of forbidden Scotland have felt like psychological Red Cross parcels.

Music too brings a similar joy. I’ve always had a soft spot for Tift Merritt’s gorgeous Feeling of Beauty during which she muses that her visit has brought so much delight she might just ‘stay on for a couple of days.’ I can’t remember why I think this but in my mind I always imagine this story happens far from her home state in a completely different environment. My thoughts always drift to Texas as it’s a place I’ve never been and somehow imagine that being so far from home would excuse the extension of any vacation.

As I get older I am more drawn to returning to old haunts even though there are still a million vistas I’ve never experienced. A few years back I was wise enough to console myself with the thought that, should I no longer want to fly or sail, I could be happy finding wonderful things to see and do in Scotland to fill the time for the rest of my life. In the last year it’s often occurred to me that this option might be as good as it gets.

When I last saw this week’s guest artist, Israel Nash, his description of his new home in the Texas hill country intrigued me. So it was wonderful to chat to him via FaceTime recently where he was sitting in his recording studio in Plum Creek on a warm spring morning. It was there he managed to make his new record despite all the restrictions and some of the many musicians on the album being hundreds of miles away. I loved the determination he showed to communicate despite the lockdown and the uncertainty of how any artistic endeavour was going to be received in this strange old time.

Topaz, Israel’s new album, brings together all the things I’ve enjoyed about Israel’s music over the last ten years or so since I first encountered him in his double barrelled Nash-Gripka days. It’s Country rock with a hint of seventies Neil Young and added cosmic elements this time round. There is also the added bonus of input from Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada. There are guitars, a big warm reverb and additional horns inspired by Israel’s devotion to the soulful records of Bobby Blue Bland and, of course, there are songs that will become your friends. You can hear tracks from the album and that spring morning conversation we enjoyed on this week’s show.

That’s not all though. Listen out for some new names including Melissa Carper, Water Tower and Madi Diaz. You’ll also hear from Miranda Lambert, George and Tammy and Loretta Lynn. It’s a packed two hours of Another Country this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight or any time you fancy on BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

Religious holidays get a bit mixed up in secular society these days. I was always amused at how quickly various people deem Christmas, for example, to be ‘all over’ before it’s barely begun. The fact the Twelve Days only start on the twenty-fifth seems now to have been roundly ignored. In Scotland they’re already gearing up for Hogmanay by the time Boxing Day lands.

Christmas does have a soundtrack all of its own. There’s no big popular accompanying soundtrack to Easter which springs to mind but there is a great tradition of religious song. As you may recall I’m a lover of Gospel music in all its obvious sentimentality and simplicity. Much of what passes for Gospel is nostalgia but I am certain that nostalgia is for a time when these simple songs of hope lifted people’s spirits in times of real hardship. The promise of the life to come, of peace in the valley and of meeting loved ones, long lost at a time in the future is a common human aspiration. We are all drawn to the possibility that there may be a kinder, more forgiving world awaiting us all. Of course, none of us knows better than the next person the truth of any of that which is why all such hope comes under the banner we call ‘faith.’

There is a deeper truth to Gospel music which resonates more with me, however. It is when the songs themselves don’t simply offer the hope of a world to come but proclaim the deep desire for a slice of heaven here on earth. As Bob Dylan might say, ‘things should start to get interesting right about now.’  He’s seldom wrong too. It’s been too easy for too long for religion to duck out of social concern by kicking hope into the long grass of the supernatural. My grandfather was said to be palmed off by a curmudgeonly step-mother-in-law who would negotiate remuneration by declaring, ‘You’ll get your reward in heaven.’

In last week’s show and in the blog I was telling the story of Stephanie Lambring whose own experience of faith brought cruelty rather than kindness and isolation and alienation when liberation should have won the day. So this week, let’s have some music which contains joy as well as the hope of a better world here and beyond. Listen to the songs of Mavis Staples, Willie Watson and The Fairfield Four, Elvis Presley, Patty Griffin and even the hint of Gospel in the great comeback album from Miko Marks and appropriately, The Resurrectors.

I mentioned Bob Dylan earlier and we’ll play the ultimate Gospel song from Bob, who inevitably, brought a focus to the genre from his wise eyrie.

It’s all in two hours of Another Country this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.