How’s it going? Here in Scotland it’s a question we ask each other regularly. Along with, ‘yaw right or the great doric, ‘fitlike’ or my favourite from an Aberdeen taxi driver  ‘Howryetheday Mannie?’

A polite and passing interest in our neighbours’ health is prerequisite for civil dialogue and we take it badly (up here) when people don’t nod or respond cordially. A friend recently told me how strange it was in Sweden to be offering polite salutations only to be (what my kids term as) ‘patched.’

In these times the question and subsequent answer will no longer be a banal platitude. Everyone now has a story and we, correctly, all fear the worst might happen.

Getting out on the bright winter days after New Year was a great escape for all of us. It seemed we discovered a new walk each day. On one occasion an enthusiastic fellow walker was so keen to get a photo with me (to which I’d agreed) he gave me the full Matt Busby hug. It wasn’t what our esteemed First Minister would have wanted but I felt I couldn’t brush him off. He seemed to need it and, in truth, it worked for me too.

In these times however, it does seem we need to adopt a little bit of Nick Lowe and become cruel to be kind. At the end of 2021 I want all of you listeners still listening in and, in the meantime, we want to bring a little joy back into the proceedings. That means we all need to follow the guidelines and stay safe.

A few years ago, as a ‘sort of’ bet, I suggested to my team that I’d be more than happy to come in one night and simply play my favourite country tracks. I can’t remember when we first instituted the ‘country juke box’ but it quickly became an annual fixture of the radio show. Within a short while we began to ask our guests to pick favourite country songs and it is now customary to make sure we have a selection from every guest on the show.

So I bring you the happy news that the 2021 Country Jukebox goes to air on this week’s show. In truth we are calling it Part One as we have so many recorded selections in the vault and we also felt that this year, and at this time we perhaps all need some familiarity to cheer us up.

On this week’s AC we want to bring you some of my go-to country songs which always make me feel a little better in the space of three minutes. I can’t offer any scientific proof as to the efficacy of all of this of course, but I know that the sound of certain familiar voices make the world seem a little warmer, the distances a little shorter and the worries we all carry feel lighter than they did before the music kicked in.

We have the best possible guests including Kacey Musgraves, Elvis Costello, Ruby Boots and Justin Currie. All of this will be augmented by selections from all the decades of country music right up to the present day. Listen out for, Hank Williams (Snr and Jnr), Waylon Jennings , Dolly Parton, Maddie and Tae and Mindy McCreadie.

This Tuesday night turn off the news and the blues and let the country jukebox make you feel a little bit better about the world. It won’t solve any of our problems but it might just make it all more possible for us to get through another week. We’re on BBC Radio Scotland FM from five past eight and you can find us live or later on BBC Sounds.

It’s always great to get to the end of something. The moment the record goes to the mastering studio, the last link on the radio, the turkey carcass becoming turkey soup…you know the kind of thing. We all sighed with collective relief when the last seconds of 2020 ticked their way out.

We begin this new year with a small sprig of hope added into our mix. But, and it’s a big but, we know for sure life is going to get tougher before it gets any easier for any of us. I tell myself and remind my children that their grandparents and great grandparents faced worse and with added menace in the two conflicts of the last century. This morning I had a long conversation with a member of my extended family who would be letting off celebratory fireworks if the pandemic was his only hurdle. For some folk troubles come not as single spies, but in battalions.

So for these reasons and many more beside I present myself as someone who is relatively free of care. I have a warm house, a new cat and shelves of great recordings which, if played consecutively, would outlast any lockdown. I intend to keep listening to all of them as I have been recommending to anyone who would listen during the last ten months.

There have been some worthy additions over the last couple of weeks however. My Yuletide Birthday and Christmas Day itself brought new vinyl joy into my life. My good producer, Richard Murdoch, found me the perfect gift: an album I have long regretted not buying from a second hand store in Nashville a few years back, Bobby Womack’s BW Goes C & W is now in my collection. My wife gave me Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country Music Volumes 1 and 2 and on Christmas Day I received From Elvis in Nashville, the album I’ve been going on and on about to everyone. Each one is on vinyl and I intend to share at least one of the records on this week’s show.

It’s not that important and it’s not even necessary but music and the time we get to listen to it is possibly the thing that might get us through this damned time. For me it’s the songs which take me back to any time of my life and these times will be no different. On this week’s AC therefore we will bring you Steve Earle interpreted by Waylon Jennings and Justin Townes interpreted by his father as well as Justin himself. We’ll bring you Valerie June and The Indigo Girls and something new from Scotland by Kerri Watt.

Two hours of country music won’t solve any of your problems but it might make them a little easier to face. Join me live from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening or anytime soon on BBC Sounds.

No one (I know of) saw this year coming. To carry on my theme from last week’s slightly Biblical Blog, last year at this time I had the smug posture of the hubristic farmer who was planning to knock down his barns to build bigger ones. I was feeling 2020 was going to be a pretty special year. Along with my fellow musicians I had a new record coming out, some interesting personal travel plans, a radio trip to Nashville, the prospect of performances at a series of exciting summer festivals and the biggest tour for a number of years. Folks, I was a made man.

Had someone told me that some of that had to be postponed I would have been disappointed. I’m only glad none of us could see clearly how badly this year would go. Would I have been ready to take on board the disappointment? I very much doubt it I fear. It was only as the possibilities began to reduce that my expectations  shrunk accordingly. By the end of November I was only too happy to imagine the possibility of lunch with a pal was up there with a standing ovation at The Royal Albert Hall. Scratch that…..Right now? It’s better.

On a song which seems to be around my life a lot these days, Into The Mystic, on Van Morrison’s Moondance album, it ends on one of the early but great Van aphorisms, ‘Too late to stop now.’ As the song played in my kitchen (again) at the weekend it struck me how apt a motto it was for this most pernicious of years.

For all the discomfort, loneliness, isolation, loss and heartbreak there are still things which, had we not just endured the last ten months, we might never have known about ourselves and our fellow citizens. What we’ve learned, what we’ve had to unlearn we need to remember to cherish and amplify. Somewhere in amongst all of this there is a different way of being which might just be the hope we need to take into the new year when it comes upon us next week.

I recall a conversation I had many years ago with the late Michael Marra when I was at a point of being frustrated at the way in which business had taken over creativity in my musical life. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘Remember this: No one can stop you making music.’ The conversation came back to me this year many times over the course of these last ten months. Despite everything – and it really has been everything – people have continued to be creative. If anything, they’ve been even more creative than ever. Home recordings, distant sessions, remote concerts, songwriting, production and all done within our own four walls. Books have been written, paintings, films, dramas created and perhaps…..some of us realise we need less than we think to get the job done.

Here on the AC we’ve traversed the globe speaking to our favourite artists from the west coast, east coast and all points in between of the United States. We’ve played tracks recorded in lockdown and we’ve hosted a session by a band who, because they share the same house, could share the same stage. For almost every Tuesday night of the year Richard Murdoch and I have stayed six feet apart but in the same studio. As the time comes round to leave the house on every one of these nights I’m grateful to be getting to come in to the BBC and share music and stories on the airwaves. Maybe too you’ve been glad of the company….I hope it’s helped.

This year has been hard. For some reading this the loss and pain may be no nearer to ending, but it will. We will get through this and perhaps we will reflect that there are new things we’d never have realised had we not been forced to change our ways. It might just be that the new way becomes so ingrained that like the good Van, we can reflect, it’s too late to stop now.

There is one final recap for the year on this week’s show with some great Country Christmas crackers along the way. You can find that this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland or BBC Sounds from five past eight. Join me if you can.

It only remains for me to say, Merry Christmas and may the new year surprise us in all the right ways. As ever, thank you for listening.

Country and Western Music singer Charley Pride is seen in this 1975 photo. (AP Photo)

Here’s a confession. I had a Damascus Road experience in the second half of this year, and I’m grateful for the experience. If you remember the original story of St Paul’s Syrian epiphany he loses his sight after his sudden conversion from persecuting Christians to joining them. As ever with the Bible, it’s a great story even if you’re not a believer yourself. Such is the force of the encounter that Saul became Paul and he completed the most influential 180º turn in modern history.

Mine was less dramatic but, for me, an important change. Until we were asked to curate a special Another Country for Black History Month I’d (wrongly) assumed the music made by African American musicians was largely outsider the genres of Country and Americana. It was only after going through many of the records we loved and associated artists that I realised this was one more way to exclude black people from the their natural audience.

Many years ago when I first started hosting shows on the radio I often suggested to the producers I was working with that they seemed to ignore many African American artists. Oh, they would explain, this show is about singer songwriters and various other half assed apologies. And Marvin Gaye, I would ask, is he not just that? Surely there is no greater singer songwriter than Smokey Robinson and the list goes on …step forward Roberta Flack, Anita Baker and Minnie Riperton.

       Tré Burt

And? Well, and here you can see where we learned something. In July when we played you The Best of 2020 So Far there was no music from any African American artists on the list. As I explained in this blog Americana means nothing if it doesn’t include the roots of the music, and the roots are planted in the black experience. You’ll find our real best of 2020 includes a good few African Americans who have made a substantial contribution to the Americana year. In one case, Tré Burt’s Under The Devil’s Knee  I’m pretty well convinced he’s written and recorded  the song of the year.

Oh I’m screaming I cannot breathe, my Lord
From under the devil’s knee.’

In this week’s Another Country we’ll play you many of the highlights of this year. It’s safe to say that although it has been the worst year in all of our living memories, music has been our solace, our comfort and the place where the year’s best stories have been told. For me, as ever, it has been music that got me through.

I’d planned to write all of this before the sad passing of Charley Pride, but it’s aeven more apposite this week to double down on our assertion that Black Lives Matter and Black music should never be excluded. You can hear Tré Burt, The Staple Singers and Charley Pride as well as great things from Chris Stapleton, Ashley McBryde and Loretta Lynn on this week’s AC.

Join us this Tuesday for the best of 2020 and a sprinkling of great Christmas Country. It’s a two hour treat which starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland and on BBC Sounds whenever you like.

This seems like a good day to talk about the end of the year. As I write the first person has just been vaccinated against COVID and as Christmas comes upon us we seem to be seeing a pin prick of light ahead. Yesterday for the first time in 2020 I played some songs with my band to an audience…remotely but we were there in real time…and the beautiful sound of drums, bass, guitar and a growling Hammond B3 filled an empty room. I don’t know what it did for the audience but it worked wonders for me.

One of the things that has kept me going this year has been coming into BBC HQ every Tuesday and spinning these records we all love. Apart from visits to the shops and taking the dog out to Pollok Park for his long run it’s the only time my jalopy gets to go anywhere. I’m always delighted to have a small but significant journey to make each week. If there’s one thing that has kept me company all year it’s been music and the constant joy of the new. Over the next two Tuesday nights I’ll get a chance to revisit our favourite songs of the last year. As ever, there will be no countdown, no #1 and nothing going up or down a chart, simply a celebration of what we have loved. On this week’s AC however we get a chance to sweep through all the things we’ve been meaning to play you for weeks but haven’t had time.

So…we will remind you about what we love about Stephanie Lambring who’s moving account of growing up and trying to make it on music row is all contained in the ten songs of Autonomy. It’s all there: Christianity (good and bad bits), sexuality, domestic violence, body image and suicide. It is, however, an uplifting and life affirming listen. We’ll remind you again how worthwhile it is tonight.

We will also celebrate the return of young Harry Lloyd in his moniker of Waiting For Smith, Ross Wilson’s gorgeous new album on vinyl under his alter ego, Blue Rose Code and remind you of another name we have loved for many years, Karima Francis. There’s lots of vinyl, two Elvises and even an Elvis tribute (though that’s not what you might think.)

There’s also our last visit of the year to Nashvegas itself from where Bill DeMain casts a festive eye over Music City to bring us the latest news and healthy gossip about how the country capital is dealing with a socially distanced holiday season. Bill also has the inside track on some famous Christmas cuts.

Listen out for Marcus King, The Chicks, Sara Watkins, Molly Tuttle and our very own Roseanne Reid and Aidan O’Rourke. It all happens in two hours of country music, our style, on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening.

On this week’s Another Country you will hear a conversation and a rather great selection of tracks from Sturgill Simpson. You probably know a bit about Sturgill by now but in case you haven’t caught up with his career here’s a quick resume´:

Sturgill emerged into country music about six years ago when his debut album, High Top Mountain, was released. It was getting  a lot of attention from opinion formers and one or two people started mentioning his name as well as forwarding early copies. It struck me then that Sturgill was the real deal with roots deep in the music of his home state of Kentucky and less bedded in the current fads of Music Row. Naturally, we liked that a lot.

Most of this was borne out when he first visited us, told us his own back story of a career in the navy, a period of manual labour and finally a late entrance into music. Since that first conversation we’ve managed to talk to Sturgill and record sessions or concerts a good number of times in a period it would take other artists to get round to a second record. He’s followed up that debut album with four studio albums in the subsequent five years, a number of successful tours at home and internationally as well as being nominated for and eventually winning a Grammy and delivering a No 1 album on the rock and country charts.

                                    This pic was taken on that first visit in 2014

If that hasn’t been a busy enough time he’s also been acting in TV and recently producing music for other artists including Tyler Childers, Lucette and Margo Price. It’s no wonder the lockdown came as a mixed blessing to Sturgill who, though contracting COVID, was still grateful to spend some time at home with his young family.

Nevertheless, despite delivering a new album at the tail end of last year, he has just released part one of a bluegrass series in which he reinterprets his own back catalogue with the help of Nashville’s finest acoustic pickers.

This Tuesday you’ll hear Sturgill talking about all of that, the studio space where he recorded and shared with the late John Prine, how he went about working with Margo Price and what he plans to do when all of this pandemic is finally over. There’s so much to love about the bluegrass album that, if you’ve not heard Cutting The Grass, I suspect you may well want to add it to your Santa list.

Despite Sturgill taking up a good hour of the show we will also share some great news from Grammy central where those who dish out the awards seem to be beautifully aligned with our favourite records of the last year. Nominations for Americana, Country and Bluegrass feature Little Big Town, The Highwomen, Miranda Lambert, Courtney Marie Andrews and Mickey Guyton. We’re delighted women are, if not in the majority, at least as well represented as the men. Hallelujah! It’s country music – our way for two hours this Tuesday evening from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM. Join me on the wireless or via BBC Sounds if you can.

I’ve never been terribly sure about the ‘Americana’ label. However I found it handy for a while when we had a local record shop which highlighted Americana as a genre and I started to find records I might have missed. This was a long time ago and there is no such shop now and Americana has a UK base and even a UK chart. A Nashville friend once told me how little the Americana chart meant in terms of real sales in the US, so I’m slightly dubious of how purposeful it is here…but that’s another story.

I’ve often thought however, that as a genre, we (on the old AC) have perhaps not given as much space and time to the roots of Americana as we could or should. If there’s an excuse for this it’s the slight fear of over emphasising music which is only favoured by old blokes who dream of motorbike excursions across the midwest and shake their bearded heads in despair of those who drink anything other than craft beer. I once encountered one such chap at a Richmond Fontaine gig who pointed to the stage and declared, ‘You should be playing these guys.’ I countered with the inconvenient truth that we might be the only radio show playing them and that I might be the only radio presenter in attendance.

In truth there is no such attitude from the many Americana acts we do play. In fact many of them point out that there is more support for them on the wireless in the UK than they could expect back home. Nashville itself comes as a slight shock when you discover that lots of the music we associate with the city is wholly absent on the local airwaves. Also absent too is the thing we seem to do here better than America: curate eclectic playlists. To that end, one of the most gratifying aspects of the Americana genre has been their adoption of other roots music which can be criminally overlooked. In recent years there’s been an acknowledgement of older R’n’B artists and other fringe folk musicians on Americana week. Who would like to categorise Anais Mitchell, Sufjan Stevens, Valerie June or Rhiannon Giddens for that matter?

So, on this week’s Another Country we bring you music by the kings and queens of Americana scene. Steve Earle, Mary Gautier, Rodney Crowell and Lucinda Williams yes but also names we don’t play nearly enough: James McMurtry, Swamp Dogg, Don Bryant and Kaia Kater. Americana in the truest sense. Not a haven for old guys who’ve outgrown The Clash but a place which celebrates all cultures, colours and sexual orientations. Hey, in truth…this week’s show’s as good as it gets.

Join me live on BBC Scotland FM or BBC Sounds at five past eight this Tuesday evening.

I haven’t seen many artists multiple times. I never saw The Beatles live, though my pal from school went with his gran! I have seen The Stones twice and there are many artists I love whose gigs I’ve never managed to make. As any musician will tell you, it’s always a bit of a busman’s holiday. We know there’s much to love at the gig but equally we’ve seen the Wizard behind the curtain and we know roughly where the smoke and the mirrors are placed. However I wholeheartedly confess that does not stop me being surprised and delighted by a few songs sung and played in a tiny venue by an artist I’m seeing for the first time. It’s happened enough times for me to know I should never dismiss the possibility of something wonderful occurring when the house lights go down.

Of the artists I’ve seen more than once, Neil Young is in the multiple category. In 45 years or so, however, (that sounds such a long time when you write it down) I’ve only seen him four times. There were two great nights, one was good and the other I fear was maddeningly so over indulgent with guitar solos, prolonged endings and feedback I left early. It was with some satisfaction that I realised I was one of hundreds all heading out before the final number. I hope that’s not the last time I get to see Neil as, over the course of these many years, I’ve always enjoyed what he does. No one can make the album you really want to hear all the time. Everyone should be allowed a little musical wandering; so I have no prescribed Neil repertoire I’d want him to pursue, but, and it’s a big but, I enjoy when he goes country.

It’s always been there of course.  There’s the ragged roots of his first Crazy Horse elpee, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere…how country noir is Down By The River? The Louvins would have been proud. On Harvest it all sounded so down home you’d almost imagine he’d cut it in Nashville. He had. Even on the dark, mourn-filled, hash-hazed Tonight’s The Night there’s an atmosphere of a dilapidated  western Honky Tonk. In this case it’s after hours, the spangly suits and hats have been hung up for the night, drink’s been taken, smoke inhaled and the house band are playing what they really feel.

So it goes with Neil. One minute he’s dueting with Linda Ronstadt or Emmylou Harris and the next he’s discovered computers, or the blues or invented grunge. It’s a wild ride on which you may have to sit through a few bumpy patches while you get to the place you’re heading.

Neil Young turned seventy five last week. There are so many country stops along the journey we thought it only fair to hand over the choice of what we’d play to you folks. I’m grateful for all your suggestions which we’ve tried to include. I’ve also chosen a few myself which we will sprinkle across this week’s show.

As well as that we will play you some fine new things from Julia Jacklin, Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell, Caitlin Cantry, Amy Ray and HC McEntire. It all starts at the usual time of five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me for another very special evening if you can.

Is it me, or have the skies cleared a bit over the last couple of days? I have to tell you that in our house there was a hooping and a hollering at the news of a new American President and a believable vaccine all in a couple of days. I’m not naive, I know there will be a million things people will expect them both to do, that there will a million different voices telling me how little change there is going to be and how really people’s lives will not improve. I know all this and I take it on board.

In respect of the US, what delights me, and it really does delight me reader, is that something decent has happened in a country which I love very much. People have voted – fairly. The world has recognised this and a new President is coming who at least seems compassionate, considerate and given to talking about the problems of his people not boasting about himself. He has, and employs to good effect, a sense of humour, a history of public service and damn it he plays Springsteen as his walk-on music…and not Born in The USA either! He doesn’t hold a Bible above his head as a token of power but has a simple deep faith which he brings to his politics and his engagement with the public.

What, you may well ask, has this got to do with country music? Our show, Another Country, is a celebration of Americana and country music. We recognise that so much of what we love about the music comes from the country where it was born and dreamed up in the first place. Can we separate those artists and repertoire from their time and culture? I doubt it. Hearing roots music is to understand why people gathered to play and sing in the first place. A couple of weeks ago we spent two glorious hours celebrating the contribution of African American artists to country music and we recognised within that story the huge struggle there was for so many of these voices just to be heard.

When the leader of a country makes it clear he isn’t listening to those voices, when he twists facts to suit his own ends and then behaves like a spoiled child as democracy takes its inevitable course it’s impossible not to feel a little spark of joy. Welcome back America; we missed you when you were gone. As one of our favourite artists, Jason Isbell put it, ‘America just got dropped off at rehab.’ It’s the perfect image: lots of hard questions, soul searching and eventually a life long commitment to follow a better path. I commend them for starting the journey. It’s one we might well consider joining ourselves.

This Tuesday we too will have a little spring in our step as we take the temperature in Nashville with our Music City correspondent, Bill DeMain. We’ll reflect on the times, a little more on the recent losses in the country community and Bill will point us in the direction of some new names. It’s 2020, it’s been a tough year, but it really is about to get a whole lot better.

Join us this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from eight as we play you some great music to match the mood.

Daydreaming as a young person I often wondered what my favourite rock stars did when they weren’t making records or touring. How did they spend an average day? I used to spend hours thinking about Neil Young in particular. On a spring morning what took up his thoughts, where did he spend time and why was it taking so long to hear the new album?

Having spent the best part of a lifetime in the business of making music I can tell you with some certainty that there are any number of ways to put off writing or recording a song. One of the joys of presenting Another Country is hearing the many different ways the creative muse works with my songwriting guests. I find my mind thinking back to Nick Lowe’s image of the radio playing through the wall from the flat next door to describe the song beginning to emerge in your consciousness. What’s perfect about the allusion is the knowledge that, at any time, the songwriter can simply move away, stop listening or ask the neighbour to turn the radio off. Dealing with the song is often the decision we never make.

©Jay Blakesberg

So it was with some interest that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings revealed to their audience the songs which they dreamed up in between records but which they chose to ignore for their early albums of this century. In fact it’s intriguing to think that so many songs were written even though there was an eight year gap between Soul Journey and Harrow and The Harvest. More will be revealed about that particular gap when Vol 3 of this Boots No 2 series comes out later this month. Meanwhile we have two volumes of lost songs to get to know. This coming Tuesday on Another Country you can hear a conversation I recorded with Gillian and David from their house in Nashville. You’ll hear why it was so important to bring these records out sooner than might have been expected, why they nearly lost all the tapes in the Nashville Tornado and why some of these great cuts have never surfaced until now. It’s a fascinating conversation and we’ll give over the second hour of this week’s show to the songs and stories of Boots No 2.

In the first hour of the show we’ll recognise that Tuesday is going to be a momentous day in America’s story courtesy of a wonderful new release from Anais Mitchell and Mick Flannery. We’ll pay tribute to the lives and work of Jerry Jeff Walker and Billy Joe Shaver who have both died in the last couple of weeks. We’ll catch up with some new names; step forward India Ramey and Bonnie Whitmore and we’ll renew an old friendship with the great Roseanne Cash. Oh and don’t miss Maddie and Tae too.

As ever we’ll be on BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday evening at five past eight and you can catch us anywhere else in the world courtesy of BBC Sounds on the night or from thirty days after. Join me if you can.