I was doing well. I was accentuating the positive. I was eliminating the negative. Reader, I was very Johnny Mercer, keeping the affirmative very close, not messing with any gloom in any way at all. Then came this weekend.
We’ve all been doing so well too. Staying home, blanking out the extended family and zooming around like we’re born to it. Then came ….well, let’s not give him any more credit than he deserves…..you know the story. Ah well, I trust and hope the readership of this blog has more sense and we follow guidelines and look after our friends and neighbours by following the government rules and not their advisors. We’ve gone for nine weeks, I think we can do a couple more.
What’s been interesting for me is finding so many people I can (remotely I’ll grant you) talk to. Want an interview with someone quite famous? Fancy a chat with an erstwhile elusive presence? Easy! The chances are they are home and twiddling their thumbs a little. So, over the course of the last few weeks, in the line of a particular piece of work I’ve been doing I’ve managed to find almost everyone I’ve been looking for. The best place to find any of them seems to be their houses. Talk about hiding in plain sight.
Nashville’s Lower Broadway during lockdown, the regular stomping ground for our correspondent Bill Demain.
On this week’s AC you can hear a conversation I recorded with our Nashville correspondent on Monday afternoon. Bill DeMain is currently still our man-in-Music-City but can’t lead any tours round the town because of the current situation. Despite this he’s got his ear closer to the ground than ever before and on the show this Tuesday you can hear him on Little Richard‘s final Nashville years, a significant anniversary for a great Twang Town venue and we both reflect on how good a socially distanced gig can really be; Bill has a report from Arkansas.
We’ll also share a song from the brand new Blue Rose Code album which Ross was talking about a couple of weeks ago and we’ll dip into the new albums from Sarah Jarosz and Whitney Rose. I’ll also be introducing you to talent of Harry Lloyd aka Waiting For Smith. I encountered Harry on a writing camp I went to around a year ago and every night he performed a song he’d written that day and as each night passed I kept thinking there was something special about him. Listen out for Harry’s new song, Long Life on this week’s AC.
We’ll have something old as well as something new from Lucinda Williams and we’ll spend some more time with the new offering from Chuck Prophet’s album, which may well be his finest album to date if we can judge anything from the tracks so far. We’ll do all this in two hours on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening. Join me then if you can or listen back on BBC Sounds.
