It’s a late spring evening and the April rain, that now seems inevitable, is doing its damnest to dampen the day. However there is warmth in my heart and a smile on my face as I sit near our fire and let the embers die sown gently being ‘Othered.’
Otherness is the name of the new album by Ferris and Sylvester and thanks to their generosity I’ve been living with the CD in the car and tonight I’m spinning the vinyl on my newly restored record deck. I’d be doing this anyway but it’s especially appropriate this week as we welcome our old friend Issy Ferris and Archie Sylvester back to the AC for a special Studio One session live from BBC Pacific Quay. The last time they were with us we were stilll trying to keep our distance and wear masks and they hadn’t, at that point, had the drama of their Nashville adventure. This was when they ventured over The Atlantic to take part in Americana Festival 2022 and ended up staying on a little longer than expected when Issy gave birth to their son, Lucky in Music City in September of that year. This didn’t stop UK Americana voting their debut album as Record of The Year at the awards the following January.
Since then they’ve been recording a new album which emerged earlier this year and touring extensively everywhere as a band. This week we have the chance to hear Issy and Archie in acoustic mode (the way we first knew them) but if you get hold of the album – which you should – you’ll hear a classic mash up of blues, country folk and pop. It’s exciting, loud and brash and has some great playing and singing which, I imagine, gets even more exuberant when they take the F&S show out on the road. For this week’s show they’ve picked some great songs from Otherness to perform live, as a classic cover and selected some great contemporary music to play on the show.
I should add that on this album there’s a great song and ruff outtake of a song called Rain. That’s never going to go out of fashion in Scotland. Do tune in on Tuesday to hear more.
Elsewhere we’ll have Brett Young, Zak Brown Band, Kacey Musgraves, Beyonce and Maggie Rogers and so much more. We’ll bring you some classic cuts and remind you about some great gigs coming soon. There’s so much to play and enjoy in two hours. It all starts at 8 on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.
In October 2022 I was in Nashville as part of a trip touring Tennessee. I went to pick up my hire car and was told by the desk clerk that the last English person he had hired a car out to had been someone whose wife had given birth prematurely whilst in Nashville.
10 days later at check-in Nashville Airport my wife was talking to a woman with a very young baby who it transpired was the wife of the man who had hired the car. They were all flying back to England ton our flight.
You can imagine my surprise when I heard your interview with Ferris and Sylvester and it turned out to be them. Please(if you can) pass on our best wishes to them