It’s been a strange old week for America and race relations. From my daughter in Baltimore I’ve had a first hand account of the appalling miscarriage of justice that led to the subsequent riots. From the middle of these riots it sounded very scary indeed. Although, as Banksy and my good friend Stuart Cosgrove in his book Detroit ’67 have pointed out, this is nothing new in America.

Strange too that this is the week that finally confirms the appointment of the US’s first female, African-American Attorney General. Loretta Lynch, who was first nominated by America’s first Black president has undergone severe scrutiny by the Senate before they have correctly assessed that she is the best person for the job. And what, I hear you say, has this got to do with country music? Well…nothing and everything I suppose. Nothing – because country, perhaps more than any other musical genre, is largely immune to fashion and political mores and everything because all popular music has been a fusion of the best that African and European traditions have had to offer. What made Elvis Presley popular was the fact that anyone who’d listened to Hank Williams could get it. What made him dangerously exciting was the fact that, in Memphis, he was exposed to B.B. King and Fats Domino.

We’ve often remarked that the tradition of colour radio has largely passed this country by until recent years. We grew up on the Four Tops, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix all side by side. To love one was to love the other equally. In America this is less straight forward.  If you lived in certain areas you could access some of the music from outside your own ethnic tradition but equally it’s very common that people I’ve met only encountered the music of their own background.

On Tuesday night on the AC we’ll pay a tribute to a country artist who broke the mould. Schooled on the likes of Ernest Tubb, Pee Wee King, Hank Williams, and Roy Acuff, Charley Pride‘s father ‘disapproved’ of the lyrics and culture of Blues music. Declining the attractions of B.B. King’s Blues Radio Show and, in an interesting contrast to Elvis, he retuned the family radio to WSM and The Grand Ole Opry. It was the music that Charley Pride loved and would eventually record and perform across the world. We’ll tell you more about Charley’s story this Tuesday as he’s coming this way soon.

We’ll also have a brilliant and brand new track from The Barr Brothers, we’ll introduce you to Andrew Combs, hear more from Audrey Rose, Awna Teixera and hear another fine track from our good friends Sara Watkins, Sara Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan.

It all starts at five past nine Tonight (Tuesday) on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

There’s a point in any good gig where the performer know the same thing as the audience. No one’s kidding each other. Everyone is having a good time and no one wants to go home. Like anything else it’s a piece of magical ephemera whose moment may pass at any second. In my experience it’s the point where the stage and the auditorium magically blend and the line between the two places seems to blur. Nothing has changed physically but everything has changed emotionally to make it seem like all things are possible. A few minutes later the house lights are on, the band are back in the dressing room the night is over. Nothing is left but a beautiful memory.

I looked up last night as Dean Owens and The Whisky Hearts were getting towards the end of their set at The Glad Cafe and I realised that the moment described above had happened again. This time I was in the audience and I was aware of being in a happy communal throng caught up in a beautiful moment.

I haven’t always known Dean’s music and it’s really only since doing the AC that I became aware of him. Last night was the first proper Dean show I’ve seen live. It was great; really great. Self effacing and sometimes almost too reticent about his own voice, Dean’s show with his excellent band was a real joy because it took me (and everyone else in that magical space) on beautiful and very visceral journeys. On ‘The Man From Leith’ his poignant tribute to his father he sang the words:

You were the first one to show me the Highlands and Muhammad Ali, And when I too became a boxer you were there for me, Now I travel these same Highland roads with my music…’

It was at the end that I reflected to my brother in law what we’d both enjoyed about it. It was the fact that we had been at an evening where the songs had taken us somewhere we didn’t expect to go. They were important stories; important because they shared something about the singer’s life and love – and it doesn’t really get any more important than that for me.

On Tuesday night I’m going to play you a couple of songs that were real highlights from the show. One of which is from his excellent new album Into The Sea.

It will be a night celebrating song writers as we also host a new star of Nashville. Brandy Clark – grammy nominee and debutante artist whose ’12 Stories’ is exactly that. Great, difficult, funny and real story songs; you know the kind of thing – what we used to think country music actually was before it was taken over by loud-mouths driving trucks and believing their own mythology. If you don’t think you know Brandy’s music you probably know more than you think. She’s a key songwriting collaborator for Kacey Musgraves has had big hit songs with The Band Perry and Miranda Lambert. That was almost the whole story for a while till she summoned up the courage to self- release 12 Stories. The rest of the story you can hear this Tuesday. It’s a great session and conversation with one of the best voices and songwriters to come out of country in the last year.

Elsewhere we’ll have some fine old vinyl from Neil Young, something new and on 45 RPM from Caitlin Rose and 33RPM from Townes Van Zandt. Introduce you to Andy Shauf and play you a track from our good friend Annabelle Chvostek..(hope you like the new direction, as the Spinal tap boys once said)

We’ll do it all in two hours and we start on Tuesday evening at five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.

Tonight on Another Country for the first time in our new Tuesday evening time-slot we will welcome a live session guest to Studio One. Not just any guest but someone who more than mostly anyone I can think of embraces the spirit and reach of Americana in its broadest sense.

Mark Olson last visited us at the AC when he had reunited with his old band The Jayhawks to release 2011’s Mockingbird Time and play, what turned out to be, a fabulous concert at Glasgow’s ABC. Before that Mark and his song writer co founder, Gary Louris, had already packed in what seems like a few different lives. At the peak of the success of The Jayhawks Mark married Victoria Williams, moved out to the desert and then decided to form the Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers with Williams. The band and the marriage all ended fairly suddenly with a well documented long drive back home to Mark’s home of Minnesota. Since then there have been tours, albums, extensive travels and the constant quest to stretch his own muse as far as the as that legendary long drive.

Right now Mark Olson’s new album, Good-Bye Lizelle is playing here in my studio. It moves from Beatles esq 60s pop of Lizelle Djan to the heartbreaking simplicity of Cherry Thieves.  Mark will be joined by his musical partner and wife Ingunn Ringvold in what promises to be a very special evening. As he sings in the opening title song, ‘Love has a way of changing the days.’ Let tonight change yours.

We’ll also have lots of new great music too. Look out for fab things from Laura Marling, Alabama Shakes, Emmylou and Rodney, Leonard Cohen singing George Jones and a little piece of George too. We’ll play Neil Young from vinyl introduce you to Sam Outlaw and round of the night with another record from newly married friends of the show. Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield have come together to record some of their favourite Elliot Smith songs. We think you’ll love it. You can judge all this for your selves from five past nine this Tuesday on BBC Radio Scotland.

If you want to turn on the radio a little earlier you will hear me talking to this man……..

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda tells the story of how Eric Bogle wrote the anti-war anthem and why the song has been covered, acclaimed and continues to be performed over these last 40 years. It’s on BBC Radio Scotland from 1:30 today. (Tuesday)

When I was much, much younger the most formative record collecting period of my life was the mid to late seventies. Safe to say – and this probably never stops needing explained to younger readers – most of that collection was curtailed by economy, not taste. I remember some of the purchases very well: Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Prisoner In Disguise’ purchased new as I was smitten by Tracks of My Tears, a song I’d missed first time round. Jackson Browne’s ‘ Late For The Sky’ bought from a small shop whose name I forget in Broughty Ferry then a Christmas Record Tokens splurge of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira and The Eagles Hotel California. (I still love the former but never really bonded with the latter). Those of a serious Dundee geographical/historical bent might remember I&M’s at the top of the Hilltown and also on Crichton Street where they kept all albums to an affordable £2:99. (Yes 40 years ago the album was only around half of what it costs now – try fitting that equation to any other consumer goods!) I think it might have been there that I bought Andrew Gold’s ‘What’s Wrong with This Picture’ and JD Souther’s, ‘Black Rose.’

It was opening these records that brought the revelation about ‘the label.’ In the middle of the vinyl was an unusual graphic. Asylum records, home of the above artists and more, was the vision of David Geffen.

Sometime William Morris mailroom guy, one time manager of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Laura Nyro he was to Laurel Canyon what Chris Blackwell had been to the singer songwriters of the UK. By the end of the seventies the label and the sound had both changed but for a few magical years you knew you could buy something you’d value if you bought something from the label. The label as a tastemaker has ebbed and flowed yet over the years Stiff, Factory, Bella Union and recently Fat Cat records have sought to re-establish the noble tradition.

On Tuesday evening at the AC we will celebrate the Asylum years from The Byrds to Tom Waits.

In the second hour we’ll revisit a conversation you may have missed over Christmas. last November I sat down with Jackson Browne to talk about his new album and his Asylum back catalogue. he tells me his own version of how great it was to be on that label and how some of the songs we love came together. It’s really not for me to say but I can’t help feeling this is two hours you’ll not want to miss. Join us from 9 on Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland.

Last week I shared a train ride back to the Holy City from sunlit Edinburgh with the great, Patrick Doyle. Continuing my interrogation after the radio cross-examination we got talking about the thing which we both share in common – our love of the song – he told me a great story which, if it’s not true, certainly should be. Steven Spielberg phones up Irving Berlin and asks to use a particular song he’s heard was languishing in Berlin’s cellar. ‘No,’ came the curt reply from the 99 year old song writer, ‘ I have plans for that song!’

I can still hear Pat choking on the laughter as he dropped the punchline somewhere near Falkirk High. We were oblivious to the odd looks we were getting from our fellow travellers……’Can you imagine?’ Pat went on, ‘Plans! Plans….at ninety nine?!’

The thing is we do this stuff because we want to do it and nothing will really stop us because…….well because we’ve always got plans. It’s apt thinking about the genius of Berlin and Mr Doyle himself as I remember a promise I made some time back to play you a song from Punch Brothers on vinyl from Phosphorescent Blues. There’s no reason to play the song other than to celebrate people who have no interest in anything other than making brilliant music. It’s genius and we will delight in playing it out to you. (and is the only song I know which contains the noun ‘thurible.’ in the lyric. For that alone – full marks Punch Boys.

I had a great listening day last week and I can’t remember how it happened other that I got to know some wonderful new artists. I’m delighted to bring some of them to the wireless this Tuesday. Look out for my new favourite Jenn Grant as the AC once more comes late to the Canadian party. It’s Jenn’s 5th album but she’s a new name to us and I think you will rather enjoy our opening selection from her new Compostela album. Ron Sexsmith appears on the record and we realise we are way overdue in playing you something from his new record, Carousel One.

We’re delighted to say Woodenbox are back with a fine new single and we’ll have some dates to tell you about too. We’re delighted too that fellow Scottish artist Robin Adams has a new album out and we’ll give you a good reason to get hold of that too.

If this is not enough we have some fine old songs by some familiar names that, frankly, we just can’t reveal now for fear your excitement reaches fever pitch. Did we tell you that Josh ……no….forget it, I’ll tell you on Tuesday night. We’re on from 9 on BBC Radio Scotland.

Unexpectedly I found myself spending my Sunday in a an old familiar part of London just round the corner from Oxford Circus. The London Palladium is a fine old theatre taking pride of place on one of the capital’s shortest arteries, Argyle Street.

I’ve probably passed it more often than been present but, from memory, have spent a few nights there. One of the last times was when I coaxed my youngest child (a boy of 6) to enjoy a night at ‘The Sound of Music’ with the rest of the family. He was a little sceptical about how much he’d enjoy it. ‘Don’t worry,’ I offered,’ There are are soldiers in this show.’ I knew it had been too much importance placed on it when, deep into the musical and not a uniform had darkened the stage and just as Mother Superior was at the height of her aria, ‘Climb Every Mountain’ a low, young voice from row F moaned…’When are the soldiers coming on?’

It’s a playhouse that, in my experience, seems to lend itself to unexpected audience participation. The previous time we’d tried to inflict a musical on the boy he’d been 2 and had found the appearance of the car in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ just too exciting. When he wouldn’t be quiet my wife was forced to take him home for an early bath. Years earlier I’d made my first visit to the palace of variety to see one of my favourite artists for the very first time. Randy Newman’s gig was going well until just before ‘Rider In The Rain’ when a rather disgruntled metropolitan type got himself into, what can only be described as a ankle. ‘Why don’t you do some new songs?’ he shouted at a bemused Randy. The singer carried on seamlessly and did a complete version of Rider with singalong included. The heckler meantime had got himself in such a fizz that he’d left his seat and stormed out of the stalls swing doors leaving a rather cold draft behind him. Cue Randy: ‘It kinda cracks me up to do this after what that asshole said but…here’s a new song.’

Master of song, master of comedy and master of perfect timing Randy didn’t disappoint me this weekend as I thought about this back-stage in The Palladium and I leafed through the Sundays to discover that he’s coming to Scotland later in the year. It’s time we had a Randy Newman moment on the show and I will play you one and another singer who’s definitely listened to Randy in her lifetime. Look out for a new artist as we play you a new song from Angaleena Presley this week.

We’ll also have some new music from Tom Russell and The Fairfield Four which, it it doesn’t get you in the right mood for Holy Week will certainly stir your soul.

And, if that is not enough, we will welcome our very special guests Lady Antebellum. Recent visitors to Scotland, massively successful and purveyors of great, harmony driven modern-country Lady A are now on their 6th album. There aren’t many ‘groups’ on Music Row but Lady A manage to combine the intimacy of the country voice with a younger audience’s need to feel like their country acts have been listening to some of their own record collections. We caught up with the band before their hugely successful concert at Glasgow’s Armadillo last month. Join us on Tuesday to hear that conversation and a selection of some great music from their current album 747 and much more too. Join us live this Tuesday evening from 9 on BBC Radio Scotland.

On Sunday……..

I’ll be on air this Sunday too when I am excited to tell you my special guest is film composer Patrick Doyle. His CV is so massive that i can’t include it all here but if you’ve seen Carlitto’s Way, Much Ado About Nothing, Brave and now Disney’s latest much-lauded Cinderella you’ll know Pat’s music.

As it is Easter Sunday we will spend some time thinking about heaven with some people who have allowed themselves to read and think creatively on the subject. In case you didn’t know we are on air from 10 this Sunday morning on BBC Radio Scotland.

Yeah, you know the joke but it’s worth remembering as everyone dreads that awful moment in any live set when (hitherto unremarkable) musicians are thrust into the spotlight. It’s fine until the drums do stop and …they take a (bass) solo.

The great records we love have often included some spectacular contributions from these same fairly unknown, but brilliant, musicians. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Stuart Cosgrove about his excellent Detroit ’67 book. In it he talks about the contribution made by The Funk Brothers to the music coming from the Hitsville Studios. At one point in the story, Berry Gordy stopped a session in LA and recommenced it back in Detroit simply so he could get the attitude and skills of that house band. In Stuart’s book, so successful were the brothers to the sound of Tamla Motown and so ubiquitous were their performances, they began to feel, fairly correctly, that their contribution to the records was being taken for granted.

In  the country film, ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’  – stop me if you’ve heard this before – my favourite moment comes when Loretta Lynn’s first recording is delayed by the studio engineer sacking the B team and calling in ‘some real pickers.’

This Tuesday evening we will celebrate one of the great studio players. It is said she played on over 10,000 recordings – many of which have been huge hits – over 55 years. Thinking about it now I guess she didn’t even have time to play a solo but of course there were these hallmark riffs. We’ll be playing you one such gem this Tuesday as we celebrate Carol Kaye’s, not insignificant birthday.

We’ll be playing new records from Brandi Carlile, Tobias Jesso Jnr, The Lone Bellow and a fab new song from our old friend Kacey Musgraves. Is this sounding good? It gets better. We will also have an exclusive AC session by these good people…..

In 2011 The Decemberists leaped forward from their Indy hide away in Portland to become America’s darlings when their album Long Live The King went straight to Number 1 on The Billboard Album Chart. We dreamed then that they might come and visit us but we didn’t quite imagine it would happen. We’re delighted to tell you that on the very day the band were to play their sold out show at The Academy they found the time to record a session with us and I sat down with Colin Meloy and talked about what a beautiful and terrible world we all live in. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Last week we started our year long vinyl celebration of dear Neil Young. We’re keeping it going but not in any logical order. Having started with his first solo album we skip to the 90s this week with a track which harks back to his 60’s roots lyrically and musically – any guesses? You can find out where the needle lands on Tuesday evening from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

On Sunday:

I’ll be hearing from green activist and Guardian writer, George Monbiot as well as talking to Peter Stanford about his excellent biography Judas: The Renegade Apostle.

Don’t forget we’re on air from 10 on Sunday morning and, as always, we will play you some fine music and you can hear us on BBC Radio Scotland.

I was trying to remember some of my more obscure songs this week for a project I have in mind later in the year. (provisionally titled ‘Ricky Bores People With Some Very Obscure Songs,’ but it needs a little tweaking) I was remembering a moment when my old friend Graeme Kelling phoned me to tell me his illness had come back. I was at a soundcheck for a solo show I was doing in the little town of Worcester when the call came in. I can still see the normality of the little shopping mall around me as I took in the news that meant he was now facing that last uphill struggle.

I think of Graeme often. We got closer again as he was in and out of hospital and we spent time talking everything through. People will tell you that he was one of the funniest people they knew and it was true. As I thought about the new shape of the week ahead  I remembered Graeme’s  favourite cartoon was this one:

We’re starting again on Tuesday nights where – from memory – I think we started many years ago. We’re now at a new time but we plan that, time and day aside, we shouldn’t really change very much. In fact we’ve invited some very old friends into the studio to give us a kick-start on our first Tuesday show. The Mavericks (all of them) have just released their new album, ‘Mono’ and thy have recorded a brilliant session which had more people we’ve had in at one time since Woodenbox last came to see us. I chatted to Raul about the making of the album and how the songs came about and you can hear all of this on Tuesday night.

As well as this…we’ll have new music from Steve Earle, The Decembrists, Lewis and Leigh, Gretchen Peters and many more of your favourite AC artists…plus some significant new ones.

Is this Peter Buck in this picture? Is he about to appear on the show again with another artist? Look out for something new featuring the great man on a track by The Minus 5.

We’ll start a year long celebration of a major artist without whom many of us would never have developed our affection for country rock. On the back of his debut elpee (from which we will play a track on vinyl) he wrote:

‘I was chopping down a palm tree when a friend dropped by to ask if I would feel less lonely if he helped swing the axe.’

If you know who that is you are certainly going to enjoy the first of our new Tuesday shows. We start at five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland

I’ll be back on Sunday too when I will spend a good bit of time talking to The Spectator’s own Fraser Nelson. I’ll also be hearing about Archbishop Leo Cushley’s vision for his diocese. This Sunday and from now on  you can now hear me at 10 a.m on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me on both occasions if you can.

The AC audience are an eclectic bunch with healthy catholic taste in music. But occasionally we’ll get a digital upturned eyebrow pointed in our direction based around music we’ve chosen to play. (Sometimes I think we should get more!) If this happens it always revolves around the theme of what country music is and isn’t. That, of course, has never defined what we are as we were always ‘Another’ country – leaving us plenty scope for doing that Neil Young thing of driving the car closer to the ditch than the middle of the road. Neil’s brilliant logic in the 70’s was that he met more interesting people there. We would have to agree with that.

Last week’s C Duncan session drew a rather puzzled tweet from a loyal listener. It made us think too. C Duncan’s music was certainly not country by his, ours or anyone else’s imagination. And yet….The previous night Richard and I had spent an enjoyable night at the Armadillo taking in the Lady Antebellum show where, on many songs, the same accusation could have been made. How ‘country’ is ‘Stardust,’ ‘American Recordings’ or even more controversially some of the solo recordings of Chet Atkins? You can add your own brilliant exceptions to the rules here. When Rab Noakes was with us last year he put it perfectly. When he started Brand New Opry on BBC Radio Scotland he wanted to make a programme for people who imagined they didn’t like country music and include in it the music that clearly had been touched by country music in some way.

People’s interpretation of how this is played out is different, but in my head I still see the song as king and whenever I can I like to think it’s the songs that matter in the two hours we get on air. I’ve always thought of virtuosity as an optional extra and where it appears in the absence of a song it is almost pointless. But give me a song, an authentic voice with a story to impart and leave in the spaces and I’ll buy it every time.

To that end we celebrate a great of country song-writing whose own albums often veer wildly away from the perceived sound of country music. Mickey Newbury was the subject of a conversation we had a few weeks ago with Rodney Crowell. We thought we should play some of his songs and hear his voice too this week.

We’ll have some great new music from Houndmouth, BC Lamplight, Lindsay Lou and The Flatbellys and Blue Rose Code. We’ll play Vinyl, old and new, from My Darling Clementine and George and Tammy. Oh the joy. It’s our last ever Friday evening show as we’re moving to Tuesday evenings from now on. Join us from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

I’m back for a few weeks on Sundays too.

This week my special guest is Stuart Cosgrove who will be talking to me about his comprehensive book about Detroit in 1967. Bringing together the story of modern Soul, The Vietnam War, Civil Rights and the counter culture it’s a month by month comprehensive to a city in its pomp as it begins a process of self destruction.

We’ll find out why Catholics John Ogilvie‘s martyrdom 400 years ago is still important for Scottish Roman Catholics.

Children from the age of 11 are to be taught about sexual consent under new government plans. The government said it wanted to give young people a “better understanding of the society around them” so they could “make informed choices and stay safe”. We’ll be joined by Sue Palmer and Dr Claire Cassidy  to help us understand how we can do this and why we might need it.

A we celebrate Detroit and Mothers Day it gives us a great excuse to play some great music. We’re on air from seven this Sunday morning on BBC Radio Scotland do join us if you can.

Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to get shirty. I’ve been quietly ignoring these be-hatted troubadours who want to sing about their trucks and beer then add insult to injury by insinuating that these are the very traits that drive women to distraction. Lads – stop it now, it’s not big and it’s not clever.

I thought about all this as I was listening to Brandy Clark this week. Honest, funny and heartbreaking she really is the real deal. She’ll be a guest soon and I can’t tell you how good that session is going to be…..watch this space for details. We’ll remind you of why Brandy had two nominations at the Grammys recently with a sample from her excellent album, 12 Stories. Not only does she write real songs about real people she’s also responsible for these lines…

So mister, here’s my twenty bucks,

Don’t play no songs about trucks or trailers or tailgates or tractors,

I’m gettin’ drunk, but not in a pasture

This bar stool is right where I’ll stay stuck

Yeah, I’ll have another beer, but I don’t wanna hear,

No songs about trucks.

…..you’ll like this Brandy Clark session when it comes very soon.

If you’ve been following my tweets this week you’ll also know that I’ve been very excited about the first new song from  Alabama Shakes from, what our US cousins like to call, their sophomore album. (I played it three times yesterday!) I defy you not to access the iplayer.

We’ll also have some smashing new things from Houndmouth, Glasgow’s own Martha Healey and look out for our new faves Awna Teixeira and Robin Ickes & Trey Hensley. (crazy names, crazy guys country lovers…)

In amongst these fine records, a smattering of warm crackly old vinyl and significant anniversaries we’ll also sweep the floor to make way for the significant talent that is C Duncan. A graduate of Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire Christopher studied composition there having mastered piano and viola from an early age. Later on he learned drums, bass and guitar. All those aspects have come together in his debut album which, remarkably, was all recorded in his bedroom. You can get an idea of that record when he previews tracks from the album in our BBC Introducing session this Friday on Another Country.

Before that…..Mr Murdoch and I have collaborated to bring you the Celtic Roots of Country for BBC Radio 2‘s dedicated Country 2 Country pop-up digital station. (You can spin your DAB dial and you’ll see Radio 2C) From 11p.m. this Thursday, 5th March, you can hear why Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Doc Watson, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings …oh…..and my old dear pal Gary Clark singing Burns are all brilliantly Celticly Connected. It will also be on the iplayer for another 30 Days. We humbly suggest you might well like this.

If you can’t join me on the pop-up show do be there on Friday when we’ll be live from Studio One with C Duncan and lots more from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.