In a lovely review of a live show the late Guy Clark performed in London 12 years ago Adam Sweeting (in The Guardian) concluded, ‘He could have played longer, but you couldn’t have asked for more.’ I’m sure Sweeting would have blanched at the thought that his review would make an appropriate obituary note but it sums up a songwriter who, even up to his last record, managed to write significant songs throughout his long career. In the same review it was also noted that, ‘Clark’s stringent quality control ensures that the newer songs don’t suffer from rubbing shoulders with the old.’ As if to prove it one of our favourite songs of his on the AC was the title track from his last album, ‘My Favourite Picture of You.’ On Bob Harris Country a couple of weeks back Bob played out an old interview with Guy where he talked about the genesis of the song. His co-writer Gordy Sampson had shown him a list of possible titles and Guy had seen that one and known exactly where he wanted to go with the song. The photograph in question was one of his late wife Susanna who had been snapped in a bad mood with her husband who had been behaving badly at the time. Its a poignant and heartfelt picture of a long love affair that shows off that his writing remained as sharp as it ever was. Guy Clark died two weeks ago and this Tuesday on Another Country we’ll pay tribute to him as we play some songs Guy wrote performed by the man himself as well as by some great country stars.

Guy-Clark

If that’s not enough we’ll have some shiny new records to play you. I’m rather excited about a Julia Jacklin‘s first single from her debut LP.

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Julia is new on the show and she comes from the Australia’s Blue Mountains but recorded her album in New Zealand’s Sitting Room studios with Ben Edwards, who also brought us the delightful Nadia Reid album last year. The album is called ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’ and it comes with a charming opener which we’ll play tomorrow night. Also, also…. we want you to hear the beguiling bluegrass of Anna and Elizabeth, Esme Patterson and another Australian (what’s going on down there?) Ry X.

We’ll have a sublime live moment from Van Morrison in the early 70’s, revisit The Highwaymen and hear a brilliant new single from our old new chum, Anthony D’Amato. All in two hours I hear you cry. Oh yes, but you’ll need to be by your radio by five past nine on Tuesday evening and have that dial tuned to BBC Radio Scotland.

I’m no longer with you on Wednesdays on BBC Radio 2 (though it’s all available on the iplayer) but am back for a good few weeks on Sunday Mornings when I hope to be speaking to the remarkable Sheila Cassidy about her experiences as a doctor working under the Pinochet regime in Chile and about her own faith which she wrote about in ‘Confessions of a Lapsed Catholic.’ BBC Radio Scotland is hosting a series of programmes around the theme of Memories and Conversation – New Approaches to Dementia and we’ll be talking to different presenters of Sunday Morning With about specific programmes they are presenting in this series. As ever, I’ll get your morning moving with some great music. Do join me if you can from five past ten a.m. this Sunday on BBC Radio Scotland.

 

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