Even this far into life – and believe me I’m far in – there is still a thrill at putting on a new record and falling in love with it. Last year the AC was sent the debut single by The Lone Bellow and, well, we fell in love. I’m not sure how many times we played ‘The One You Should’ve Let Go’ but it quickly established itself as our record of the year.
The subsequent single, ‘Green Eyes and A Heart Of Gold’ was another slice of pop perfection too. Could the album be this good? A couple of weeks ago I finally got a chance to hear the whole thing and ~I realised these two singles were no flukes. There is a real depth to this band and there are many, many highlights on a very fine debut. Perhaps the most amazing thing is how far into the record they wait before revealing that debut single. This Friday we will be in converstaion with Zach Williams from the band who came in a few weeks ago to Studio One to record a session for the AC. Zach shares his own incredible story and will talk about the extended community of artists in their adopted Brooklyn home. A brilliant session with our new favourite band is not to be missed.
As you know, we celebrated vinyl night last week and we’ve taken the logical decision to leave the record player up and continue to play some vinyl every week on the show. This week we venture into new territory with a track from a 10″ album from 1954. It’s an artist we hadn’t ever played on the show until our Country Juke Box night a month or so ago….we think you’ll like it.
We’ll also have a pile of new music from two new singer song writers from Ireland, something from Tom Ovans mesmeric and massive double/triple? album all recorded on a 4 track, some more from the wonderful Eliza Gilkyson and we’ll celebrate a significant anniversary for The Louvin Brothers.
We’ll also pay tribute to this man:
Jessie Winchester died on April 11th after fighting bladder cancer. He was probably best known as a writer of songs for other people including Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris and Joan Baez.It’s fascinating to note however that his songs were still being cut as recently as the last couple of months by Rosanne Cash and Don Williams. We will pay tribute to the great Jessie this Friday.
Do join us if you can. It all starts at five past eight this Friday on BBC Radio Scotland.
I particularly appreciated the nod to Jesse Winchester in last week’s show—another songwriter with whom I am not nearly as familiar as I oughta be. I was privileged to the in the audience at the Barbican this evening to experience Rosanne Cash at the height of her powers, and she made sure to include “Biloxi” in her set by way of her own tribute to the man, “whatever parallel universe he’s living in now”. Her blistering version of “Ode to Billie Joe” got another airing, too. Great night.
I’ve loved that “The River and the Thread” has been getting a fair few spins on The AC, by the way. We’re only a quarter of the way in, I know, but it’s my album of the year to date—a status not harmed by the fact she played it in its entirety and in order in the first half of tonight’s show. I see she’s coming to the Southern Fried Festival this year. A memory stirs that the timing for this doesn’t normally work for you but, in case it does, she gets a hearty recommendation from me! She’s just a fantastic storyteller, be that in song, speech or prose—and her husband’s quite the musician himself, too.