Gratitude

I’ll never be cool

I’ll never be good looking

And I’ll nver be rich I know

But Lord, I’m grateful

from Blue Rose Code’s Grateful

Gratitude. Perhaps one of the most valuable attributes we can hope for in a checklist of personality traits. And yet, it’s a hard one to get and sometimes difficult for others to accept. It’s the word that comes to mind first when I think of this week’s special guest on the AC. Ross Wilson aka Blue Rose Code is someone who has put that word and that idea front and centre of everything as he’s made in music over the last ten years.

He’s also been in a hurry to be grateful too. He’s made at least six albums, numerous EPs, compilations and singles and a live album as well as touring extensively with an assortment of fine players who make up the BRC ensemble. In its current guise Blue Rose Code is a seven piece live act who have just recorded a great new set of songs called Bright Circumstance which brings together all the elements of the BRC sound: country/folk/blues/jazz…in fact, in a time when we are celebrating the killing off of genre, let me say the new album is all of these things and none. It’s a Blue Rose Code album.

When Ross first spoke to me about the record, he correctly pointed out that our show would be as good a place to showcase the songs as any for the veru reasons I’ve just given. As our old friend and mentor, Rab Noakes used to say, ‘ we play music that has been touched by country music in some way.’ Of Bright Circumstance there is no doubt taht has been the case.

Ross Wilson however has a restless energy about his life and his music. Is it making up for lost time or is it that like all great creators he is curious to see what me round the next bend. Either way we  too are grateful for his quest and where it has led him and the songs he’s gifted us along the way. In a way he’s a man out of time and his music could fit in to any of the last five decades and that’s what gives him a unique style and sound. You can hear that sound as Blue Rose Code play live from Studio One on this week’s Another Country.

Elsewhere we’ll bring you wonderful new music from Carly Pearce, John Moreland, Roseanne Reid, Kenny Chesney (there’s always a first time for everything) and Charley Crockett. There will be old things too as we celebrate music that must have inspired Blue Rose Code from Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. It’s a busy night on the radio and we do it all in two hours on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Scotland from 8 this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can.