Ricky's Radio Blog

general musings

The Time Of The Preacher

March 26, 2019 by ricky No Comments

It was the time of the preacher in the year of ’01/ now the preaching is over and the lesson’s begun.
The words are from The Time Of The Preacher the opening track to Willie Nelson‘s seminal 1975 album, ‘Red Headed Stranger.’ I found myself thinking about that song this week. It formed a significant part of the soundtrack to the brilliant Edge of Darkness when a grieving Bob Peck finds himself trying to unpick what might have led to the death of his daughter. A compelling political conspiracy ensued. It’s still worth watching too.
In these highly charged times of national soul searching it seems appropriate to flag up a few political songs in this week’s blog. Maybe it’s the atmosphere or perhaps it’s simply desperate times but I’m encountering a few country records where some significant artists are wearing their country hearts on their checkered shirt sleeves

I have a deep love of the music of Son Volt and the voice of lead singer Jay Farrar. I missed his earlier output but since I saw him deliver a great set of re-imagined Woody Guthrie songs with mono syllabic intros to a rather bemused Celtic Connections audience I’ve been a fan. Anyone who can keep an audience teased without ever telling them they were great or beautiful deserves our full respect. On the new Son Volt album Jay has turned his attentions to the state of play USA. “These songs are songs of turmoil,” Farrar said in a release. “Questioning what’s going on.” He’s taken his inspiration from Woody himself and it’s potent stuff.

We have played protest songs before and one of the veterans of the Civil Rights struggle has come back with a fresh set of anthems. Kicking off with Change (there’s a title) Mavis Staples new song (written and produced by Ben Harper) is a glorious hymn of inspiration and liberation. On a country tip too Charley Crocket is telling an old story on his forthcoming album – ‘I would stay here and keep on working but there’s no more water in the well,’ sings Charley. You can hear the full song ‘A Life of Sorrow’ on this week’s show when we’ll also remind you that Ry Cooder still has the powerful in his sights on his 2018 album, ‘Straight Street‘.

Elsewhere we’ll use our two hours of radio time fruitfully. There are some great new records out by Mandolin Orange (on vinyl too), Midlake’s EB The Younger, Eleni Mandell and Yola. We will tell you that Steve Earle did indeed make that Guy Clark tribute record and we see it only right to play something from the record and something great from Guy himself.

Is that it? Oh there will be so much more. Look out for some classic cuts from Lanco, Bobby Wood and Dustin Lynch. And, if that’s not plenty to be getting on with we’ll introduce you to a new band from Scotland called King Of Birds.

It’s Another Country, it’s on BBC Radio Scotland and it all starts at five past nine this coming Tuesday evening.

Reading time: 2 min

general musings

The Long Way

March 11, 2019 by ricky No Comments

It’s been another great weekend, maybe the best yet, for Country 2 Country in Glasgow. There’s a number of eye catching details but I want to, if I may borrow from Brett Eldredge, take you the long way around.

Let’s start with some of those eye catching details. More people wanted to come, and more turned up to our two Another Country conversations even though we didn’t offer any of the headline artists. Secondly, and crucially, more people (by some distance) came to C2C itself. In short on Friday and Saturday nights the audience would have filled the Armadillo three times over with half a hall again locked out. That’s success by anyone’s standards. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly for me, the Hydro was a perfect fit. It sounded great….at times (whisper it) much better than the Armadillo sounded on some nights in the old days). All the people moaning at me about the venue had either decided not to return or accepted the fact that a bigger venue works. It allows more in, gives them easy access to come in and out without annoying people and, on a number of occasions became an intimate room for some very special acoustic moments.

Friday

Maybe’s it’s because I’d spent some time with Drake White on Friday afternoon or perhaps it was just his raw energy but he took the arena by storm and set the tone for the weekend. Drake was impossible to resist; gospel, country, southern rock…southern soul…you get your whole record collection in forty five minutes of Drake time. I took the minutes after his set to walk around the Hydro. Having listened to the Wandering Hearts a few times on record I was probably the most surprised to find I was stopped in my tracks to hear them live. Where the record had left me a little cold, live and acoustic they played a perfect set and caught the imagination of the C2C audience. The Spotlight stage was to become one of the more interesting spaces over the weekend.

I was surprised to see Ashley McBryde looking a little downcast after her set. To me it had been a perfect big stage introduction. You’ll hear a brilliant conversation (well her bits) with Ashley on next week’s programme and I suggest that, after a little reflection, she’ll agree with most of the audience and me that she and her band played a blinder.

There’s some truth in those who feel Lyle Lovett‘s billing was a little odd. But that’s only because country music has taken such a mainstream/pop turn. I’m not sure Lyle was ever going to convince a C2C audience that he was essential listening, but reader he was. It was a beautifully curated performance with some of the weekend’s finest moments coming during North Dakota, If I Had a Boat and his finale of Townes Van Zandt’s White Freightliner. If that’s not country, then we all need to think again.

Chris Stapleton: First the positives. He’s got a great voice, he had the best sounding electric guitars of the weekend….oh how warm and crunchy those pick ups and valve amps sounded…and boy can he play that thing. He’s also of course, got some great songs and the odd well chosen cover. I loved Kevin Welch’s Millionaire, an old favourite. But…..and it’s a reasonably big but, Chris will have to do a little more than sing his songs to his wife if he’s to bring people in to the party. Personally I’d be happy staying home and listening to the records…and eventually that’s what I opted for.

Saturday

Chase Rice is always going to get credit from me for his intro music (a well known song of mine). Like Drake on the Friday he got the party started and wasn’t going to let a 5:20 starting time dampen any enthusiasm. He made a lot of friends. This night also brought another beautiful surprise from Caroline Jones. Her gorgeous acoustic set was a real bonus for me. I was hoping for something special from Cam. The last time she’d been here she played a brilliant set and established herself with the C2C audience. This year she went to the next level. Cam is a significant artist who had the chutzpah to take the Hydro into her confidence, tell her stories and speak a few home truths (“women enjoy sex as much as men do”). Unlike some of the acts over the weekend Cam’s festival of lights at the end of Burning House was a spontaneous ovation, wholly deserved. Logan Mize worked the crowd well but may come to regret asking for an audience volunteer. Young Aidan (his impromptu harmonica holder) clearly upstaged him.

I’ll be honest. I’d not paid much attention to Brett Eldredge before he was announced for this year’s event. Preparing to meet him I’d listened to a good chunk of his music and I still didn’t know if I’d be buying all his albums. It was then a lovely to surprise to witness him putting in one of the performances of the weekend. Two beautiful moments for me were Brett’s acoustic versions of The Long Way and Mean To Me. Flawless and moving in turn. Brett, you nailed it bro’.

NASHVILLE, TN – JUNE 02: Country music singer Brett Eldredge performs onstage during the 2014 CMT Music Awards Rehearsals Day 1 at Bridgestone Arena on June 2, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CMT)

It was a long day and I knew the audience would love Keith Urban. I fear I didn’t see enough of his show to pass any comment but everyone seemed very happy the next day.

Sunday

Carly Pearce …….Carly will, I’m pretty certain, become a very big star. But again the Spotlight stage brought some real discoveries. The Hydro just loved Ingrid Andress. I think we are going to hear so much more of her. She’s a writer and a half and has a great voice. Watch this space.

Hunter Hayes wowed C2C a couple of years back. He’s an amazing talent. A great instrumentalist and a gifted vocalist. His music could easily sit quite comfortably on a pop/alternative festival line up. At times dense and (for me) a little over busy there’s no question that there’s a lot of clever stuff going on. Country wise when he opened up about his own insecurities of performance he won a lot of friends. Country is nothing if not truthful and Hunter is one of the good guys who gives everything on stage. No one was more delighted than he when the crowd joined in on Wanted. A lovely moment.

So the stage was set for the weekend’s very popular closing act. Lady Antebellum and C2C are a perfect fit. They played it exactly right. Two well placed new songs from the forthcoming album felt like a nice balance in a set stacked with familiar hits. Again they did that Hydro into the Bluebird thing with a beautifully arranged acoustic segment. Everyone just loved American Honey and Heartbreak‘s a modern classic is it not?

Over the next two Tuesdays you can hear interviews from backstage (this week) and our Pacific Quay Conversations (next week.) There will be plenty of music too. Join me if you can from five past nine over the next couple of weeks. It’s all on BBC Radio Scotland FM.

Reading time: 6 min

general musings

Here Comes C2C Weekend

March 5, 2019 by ricky No Comments

On this week’s Another Country we’ll play you some of the highlights of our Quayside conversations at last year’s C2C. You’ll hear Margo Price, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Campbell and Midland. You’ll get a chance to hear them answer my questions and some of yours.

It’s a tradition we’ve had over the last few years and we’re delighted to be involved in the festival. In the time we have been broadcasting we’ve seen the event grow every year. C2C will again be based at the SSE Hydro as the demand for tickets is so huge the Armadillo can no longer contain it. It’s a success story that cements Scotland’s deep love of country music. And, unless you’ve not been there, you’ll not know this, the audience is much more youthful than you would expect. Young people are digging country music big time.

Many people who consider country music the rather gauche cousin of folk and alt country will possibly feel the festival is not for them. So, let me give you some reasons to be cheerful that it’s C2C weekend:

Firstly, it’s that old chestnut, diversity. If you think you don’t like country music the chances are you haven’t heard enough. One of this year’s headline stars, Chris Stapleton has done more to bring mainstream country music back to its roots than any other artist over the last 15 years. A stellar Nashville songwriter and previously with bluegrass band The Steeldrivers, Chris’s simple roots music has reminded people what they may have been missing when they fell for all those ‘hat acts’ in the early part of the century. As well as this Chris’s collaboration with Justin Timberlake has brought country music to a brand new audience. If you’re going on Friday night you must stay and listen to the biggest selling (by a country mile) artist of the last few years.

If last year’s double act Faith Hill and Tim McGraw epitomised superstar Nashville then the incumbent of this year’s equivalent slot, Keith Urban, is a worthy replacement. Winner of multiple Grammy, CMA and CMT awards (in 2005 and 2006 he picked up everything!) Keith Urban is a country star. Born in New Zealand, he started his recording career in Australia before moving to Nashville and since then he hasn’t looked back. He’s a great guitarist, a huge interpreter of songs and he’ll be headlining on Saturday night.

Lady Antebellum make a welcome return to C2C on the Sunday night. The band played at one of the early festivals a few years back then spent a couple of years off after a hectic release and tour schedule that brought them huge success. Fresh from a fifteen date residency in Las Vegas and bringing together harmony and beautifully crafted pop/country I can testify that Lady A will entertain.

It’s inevitable you might want to take the odd break so let me lead you to some unmissable performance over the weekend. Lyle Lovett on Friday night is one that shouldn’t be missed. Lyle is not a frequent visitor but his unique blend of country swing and jazz should be a really special hour. You don’t need me to tell you how exciting it is to have Grammy nominated Ashley McBryde on this year’s bill. Her star is rising and, if like me, you love her album you will not be disappointed with her live show. We featured songwriter Heather Morgan in our Nashville round last year and she has written a lot of material for Brett Eldredge. Brett has a great country voice and it’s a rare chance to see him on this side of the Atlantic.

Make sure you catch Cam – her performance from a couple of years back was a real highlight and don’t miss Drake White who we have featured as a guest on Another Country. Make sure you are there on Sunday early. Personally, I think Carly Pearce will be a great opener on that night. I’ve loved her singles over the last year and ‘Every Little Thing’ is a country classic.

If you can’t make it to any of our up close sessions at The Quay make sure you say hello as I will be in and around C2C all weekend. Meanwhile listen in on Tuesday evening when you can hear how good C2C 2018 sounded. It all starts at five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.

Reading time: 3 min

general musings

The Full Neilson

February 26, 2019 by ricky No Comments

In 2017 an album came out which I couldn’t stop playing. It was by the endlessly fascinating Sam Baker. If you want to check back it’s a record which still speaks to our times and is a beautiful sonic experience.

The album, ‘Land of Doubt’ was produced by Neilson Hubbard. It’s one of a number of records we’ve loved on the AC which Neilson has produced. Like all great productions each of the artists Neilson has recorded has been allowed to express themselves in their own way. His back catalogue reads like a who’s who of some of our back episodes: Ben Glover, The Orphan Brigade, Dean Owens, Buffalo Blood, Caroline Spence and Mary Gauthier.

In the spring of that year I was so taken with Neilson’s work I asked my friend Ben Glover to introduce us when I was over in Nashville. Generously, Ben suggested we get together and write. On a lovely, warm late spring morning we all got together, Ben, Neilson, my colleague Gregor Philp and myself and we started to write a song. As the song unfolded I got to watch Neilson at close quarters move between his instruments and the sound board as he nudged us towards completing a song. They told us about their experiences up in Franklin, Kentucky (where Neilson and his wife singer, Audrey Spillman now live) where an old antebellum house had been the ad hoc recording studio for the first Orphan Brigade album. Before lunch Neilson and Ben were hatching plans to take us to the house.

We’d been fully Neilsoned.

The song we wrote that day eventually came out on the award winning Shorebound by Ben Glover and yes, we visited the haunted house. In the meantime Neilson went on to explore further adventures in audio and film and in the last months of 2018 released his first solo record for a number of years. Cumberland Island is a warm, intimate collection of songs which started its creative journey in the days after Neilson and Audrey’s wedding. You can hear more from that record and more about the life of Neilson Hubard in an extended conversation this Tuesday evening.

We will also pay tribute to a Nashville legend, Fred Foster, who died last week. You may well have heard us talking about Fred with Dawn Landes (whose last album he produced) recently, and you will hear Dolly Parton talk about him in a few weeks time when we bring you a conversation I recorded with her about the songs on which her career was based.

Sadly too we will be reminding you about the life of Bluegrass legend, Mac Wiseman who died aged 93 earlier this week.

Elsewhere we will introduce you to the music of Country to Country 2019. You’ll have heard music from the headliners Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban and Chris Stapleton many times before. But how much do you know about Brett Eldredge, Hunter Hayes, Chase Rice and Dustin Lynch? We’ll show you what to listen out for. We’ll also remind you that over the weekend you can see Cam, Carly Pearce, Drake White and Lyle Lovett.

Perhaps even more importantly we’ll let you know how you can join us for some of our legendary Q and A sessions at Pacific Quay. It’s up close and personal with the stars of C2C and the sure fire way to guarantee your ticket for these sessions is to listen live this Tuesday evening from five past nine. It’s all on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

Reading time: 2 min

general musings

So, Where Are We Now?

February 19, 2019 by ricky No Comments

In a BBC survey you will read of the gap between the number of successful Male and Female artists in the UK. There were three times as many male than female acts reading chart positions last year. The gap is only going (if you’ll pardon the pun) in one direction. If this seems worrying it’s nothing on the plight of women in country music.

I’ve kept an eye on the Twitter feed of Nashville journalist, Marrisa Moss for a good while over the last couple of years. Unlike many of the city’s other music news feeds there’s an essential iconoclasm about a lot of her output. On twitter I’ve drawn attention to her constant updating the plight of great women artists ignored by country radio. It’s a small detail but that simple fact (recently compounded by an all-time-low of no women in the country top 40) that a large swathe of great talent is being ignored by the gatekeepers of the music and it’s an outrage which needs to be addressed.

It really shouldn’t need said but all this is happening when the women in question are making some of the most imaginative country music of any generation. Listen to the names: Pistol Annies and their component parts: Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angeleena Presley as well as Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark, Lee Ann Womack…and so many more, all roundly ignored by country music radio. The names I’ve given you are hardly left field; they are simply writing and performing fresh music within the country format. When pressed the gatekeepers will point to their audience – predominantly female – who endorse their decision making. My riposte? How would they know? That audience never get a chance to hear the artists concerned!

So, it was from the good Marissa that the news broke on the latest instalment of #metoo. The Ryan Adams story which, if you are not up to speed, you can google at leisure. It’s not for me to pass judgement on the New York Times article or on the women who came forward but it’s no coincidence she has followed and tweeted about both this and the missing country women. Only last night Margo Price tweeted that the lyrics of her song, This Town Gets Around were really the true story of a previous manager/producer who ‘harassed me multiple times and even slipped me the date rape drug.’ Before you ask, Margo’s not played on country radio either.

Are these two things connected? Well again we have to listen to the women. Reading their stories, it’s not hard to imagine their struggles to be heard. Any person willing to give them a voice and the possibility for their music to reach a wider audience is going to be welcome. If that person has a different agenda it not only stops the voices being listened to but it sets back so much of what we have hoped had been achieved over the last 50 years.

In my time involved with a major record company the staff ratio was so skewed to male personnel that there had been a habit of senior management calling up a local nurses hostel to ask if they could send over some young women for the end of conference shindig. I kid you not. Female staff were retired early, deemed too old to make an impact in a young world while old male stalwarts were kept on, cherished and rewarded. Think of any major institution close to your heart and see if the parallels are there.

So, it’s clear that where ever we imagine we should be, we are still, in the words of a young person from whom I once asked directions in Nashville, ‘a ways away.’

On Another Country we have a simple rule. We play the music we like the best. We try to include the different strands of roots music we’ve always championed. We acknowledge that this particular genre is loved and produced by white people…that’s not something that’s going to change very much. However, there are so many great records being made by women it seems to me to go against every musical instinct to ignore that. On any given week you’ll hear their voices loud and proud and in equal measure; this week is no different.

Listen out for Caroline Spence, Kim Lenz, Patty Griffin and Ashley McBride. We’ll also say a monthly hello to our Nashville correspondent, Bill Demain who pops in from Music Row to give us his news. We’ll be on air from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me this Tuesday evening if you can.

Reading time: 3 min

general musings

And the winner is…Kacey Musgraves

February 12, 2019 by ricky No Comments

The Grammy Awards is a pretty big deal. I’ve met Grammy winners and I’ve even eyed them up close and only a mad fool would tell you they wouldn’t be honoured to get one. The reality is, once you have a Grammy no one is going to take it away from you. So, as I stood out in the garden on Monday morning scrolling through my phone to check on Sunday’s awards news and keeping half an eye on our new foster pup I experienced a mixture of emotions.

I was disappointed for Neilson Hubbard who produced Mary Gauthier‘s nominated Rifles and Rosary Beads, a little down hearted they had passed on Margo Price and more than miffed that John Prine couldn’t have rounded off a fine year with a little gong. It was not to be. However I was delighted at the recognition for Kacey Musgraves.

I have a very bad record of Kacey love, so it’s no thanks to me you heard all of her early releases. My memory is that I didn’t quite connect as much because I saw her as slightly too music-row and was a little bemused that she was being seen as a bit ‘trendy.’ (anything trendy always worries me a little). How wrong was I? It took our good colleague Kirsten slipping in ‘Keep It To Yourself’ to a playlist one night for me to fall in love. Believe me however, when I fell in love, reader….I fell.

Something about the simple geography of the lyric and melody of that song sneaked its way into my heart and once a song lands there…rather like the Grammy awards themselves…no one can prise it away. There is always something magical about the writing combination of Kacey, Luke Laird and her long term soul buddy Shane McAnally. So it’s no surprise that Kacey picked up four Grammy awards on Sunday which included an award for the country perfect, ‘Space Cowboy’ written by that very same team.

I enjoyed Kacey’s set at Country to Country as much as I have enjoyed anything in 2018 and the album she was launching, I predicted at the time, would be very hard to better. So I am feeling a little smug that I took on a few naysayers after C2C last March who seemed to be determined Kacey’s show there, was inferior to some of the beer/truck ‘n’ hat acts they were there to see. As a counter balance I should admit that I was telling those close to me that I had no high expectation of Kacey’s show as her first appearance a few years before had left me a little cold. I was so wrong. It was a pitch perfect hour which anticipated the forthcoming Golden Hour and this Tuesday we’ll celebrate a year of triumph for Kacey Musgraves.

Within ten days of that event I heard this week’s special guest. On an interval mix tape I heard Devin Dawson‘s, ‘All On Me’ before it started sneaking into our life on our car radio. It’s a brilliant country/pop crossover song and you can hear all about how Devin has become the artist to watch in a session and interview on this week’s packed Another Country.

Elsewhere we reach E on our Country A-Z, salute the return of Jenny Lewis, Josh Ritter, Todd Snider and a rather beautiful weather song from Ryan Adams. You’ll hear the gorgeous voices of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan on the first single release from the new I’m With Her album and you’ll enjoy the classic voices of Bobbie Gentry, Buck Owens and Webb Pierce.

As ever we do it all in two hours of BBC Radio Scotland’s time so join me live from five past nine this coming Tuesday evening if you can.

Reading time: 3 min

general musings

Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s The Delines

February 5, 2019 by ricky No Comments

In one of my favourite scenes in one of my favourite movies, John Travolta explains to Samuel L Jackson the quintessential aspects of visiting Europe. This involves the French term for a large hamburger he ordered in Paris. Wistfully reflecting on it all he smiles and says, ‘It’s the little differences.’

I thought of this scene as I reflected on this week’s special guests, The Delines. Tiny margins, sometimes negligible, but enough to tilt short, vulnerable lives off balance. It’s those little differences that bring Willy Vlautin’s songs to life. Nothing is left to chance…though there’s plenty of room for your imagination too. Desolation, disappointment and broken dreams all counter-balance the optimism of the country-soul of the music of Willy’s band The Delines. With the voice of Amy Boone telling the stories of Holly, Charly, Sonny and one of Willy’s best ever couples, Eddie and Polly (love the names) we are brought gently into stories which skirt with personal disaster but contain moments of joyous relief. In Holly The Hustle, as Willy points out in this week’s extended interview, her life may seem like a series of wrong turnings but she still grifts the guy for $60K!

After their gig at Oran Mor a week past Sunday, The Delines came in to Studio One at AC Central and we recorded some live songs and talked to Willy and Amy about their new life as a band. Amy explained the three year wait for this new record, why she’s being pulled north to live in Portland and we get a chance to talk to Willy about the many characters he’s created in his songs and novels. If you are still not sure whether you like the band I refer you to the esteemed Rachel Unthank (of the eponymously named folk group) in yesterday’s Observer who describes their music as ‘heartbreaking and sad but really warm and beautiful.’

In what will be a crowded two hours we will also pay tribute to the late Harold Bradley. We met Harold (younger brother of producer Owen) two years ago in Nashville. Then he was ninety one and still full of great reminiscences of his days making records in the famous Quonset Hut where he played guitar on records by Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison and so many more. He died peacefully last week and we will celebrate his unique contribution to country music on Tuesday.

Your host standing next to the great guitarist Harold Bradley (January 2, 1926 – January 31, 2019) Owen’s daughter and son, Patsy and Jerry to his left.

Finally, we will celebrate. On Thursday night some of our favourite guests were honoured at the UK Americana Awards in London. Mary Gauthier, Courtney Marie Andrews, CJ Hillman, Ben Glover and Scotland’s very own, Dean Owens all received awards. Three of these artists were produced by Neilson Hubbard who has been a guest and is soon to be interviewed on the show. It was a wonderful endorsement of these great performers and of our continued support of their music. We will celebrate by playing you the winning songs of the night.

It’s all on BBC Radio Scotland from five past nine this Tuesday evening. Join me if you can.

Reading time: 2 min

general musings

Sneaking Ashley Through Printers Alley

January 29, 2019 by ricky No Comments

Twitter asked its customers for some input yesterday: One thing you’d tweet your teenage self. I liked Mhairi Black, the UK’s youngest MP’s answer. ‘Don’t tweet that.’ I once recorded a series of radio conversations where the guests were asked to address their younger selves. It came from a letter Stephen Fry had written and published along similar lines.

It’s an interesting thought and led to me to take up the challenge in a song I wrote to the young man I was thirty years ago. ‘Here I Am In London Town,’ was an interesting exercise for me. Writing it in a studio in Shepherd’s Bush I found myself thinking about the person that had first adventured into London all those years before. The conclusion? ‘There’s so much to forget, but it’s forgetting that makes it easy. That’s how we survive.’ And, for me, that was the truth. We seem to remember the important stuff and it’s only possible to keep going if we let some memories slip away. We can’t carry it all.

I thought of this when preparing to talk to this week’s very special guest, Ashley Monroe, AKA Hippie (Hillbilly) Annie from The Pistol Annies. In the liner notes to her beautiful current solo album, Sparrow, she talks about the therapy she experienced before writing it and remembers the young person she was who first came to Nashville as a teenager. Reflecting that every minute of her time growing up has been important (“even the times I was a sloppy underage drunk in Printers Alley, trying to sing “Broken Wing’ like Martina in the karaoke bars to get discovered“)

Ashley’s honesty is engaging and moving. It comes out in a brilliantly ambitious record which tells her own recent story of being a first time mother. You will hear all of this in a conversation I recorded with her for this week’s Another Country. She cut three session tracks for us too after her sell-out show at St Luke’s as part of Celtic Connections last Sunday. Reading Ashley’s notes it reminded me of seeing two young girls outside The Ryman on my first visit to Music City when I’d gone to see Patty Griffin‘s concert there. Returning to my car I couldn’t help notice two teenagers dressed up like Patty tottering back to Broadway in red velvet heels, high on the music of the night. It was a joy to behold. I always wished Patty could have seen them, and often wonder where they are now and indeed what they’d make of their young selves.

So it’s with a glad heart too I can tell you there is new music to play you from Patty and we may well use the excuse to celebrate something from the album I first heard on that warm summer evening back in 2007. It will be a great pleasure to play the title track of Sean McConell’s new record too. One of my first writing dates was with Sean in the Warner Chappell building on that trip and it was on his recommendation I went to see Patty that night. I have a lot to thank him for and I think you will love the title track of his new album, ‘Secondhand Smoke.’

Elsewhere we will celebrate some new music from Yola, Sister Sparrow, Hayes Carl and Clint Bradley. We will get to the letter C on our A- Z of country music and we will attempt to bring you all of this in two hours of radio. Join me live if you can this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland.

Reading time: 3 min

general musings

Who’s Gonna Write The Songs?

January 22, 2019 by ricky 2 Comments

It was a freezing cold November in New York in 1992. From memory we were over to publicise a new record due to be coming out the following year. My task was to have a one to one meeting with the head of our label and convince him to spend a fortune promoting it…I was less than confident.

The label boss in question was Don Ienner of Columbia Records. A big man with a big personality who ran the operation on a mixture of brute force and fear. I sat outside the office waiting to go in with a knot in my stomach.

Soon the door opened and I was beckoned in to the big man’s hallowed space. There were many things I’d expected (rumours abounded about his ejecting hapless promo guys out for failing to meet targets) but I had no preparation for the conversation that ensued. My 7 year experience of the music business so far had taught me that the higher one moved up the chain of command the less likely it was that anyone ever talked about music any more. So it was with some surprise when Don invited me to sit down and listen. ‘It’s the new Dylan album,‘ he told me over the track. As it finished a smile came over his face. ‘A couple of years back I had a conversation with Bob and ..I never do this,’ he emphasised ‘ but I decided to suggest a project to him. I wondered if he’d be interested in making a record without any band..just him..his voice and a guitar. Of course he wasn’t interested at all at the time and I felt really stupid. He immediately barked back at me, “Yeah and who’s gonna write the songs, Bruce?”

‘ At that point Ienner pulled out the brand new copy of ‘Good As I Been To You’ on CD. ‘And what do you know, he went and did it.‘ He laughed at his own plan coming into fruition. ‘It sounds great too..like one of the old bluesmen, his voice is raw and cracked, and it’s brilliant. As well as all that Ricky, there’s another thing I’m slightly proud of.’ He pulled the CD out of the player and pointed to the artwork. It was the Columbia label just as it had looked on all those classic vinyl albums of the late sixties and early seventies. ‘I suggested we reintroduce our logo on the CD and we’ve done it.’ Rightly, he looked proud as punch.

Music, it seems, always wins the day. We were set up for some high powered meeting which simply turned into two blokes who shared a love of records rejoicing in the fact our hero had made a blistering return to form and it even looked good. My respect and admiration for Don Ienner was complete. I couldn’t imagine many label bosses who would have the same time to share the passion for their own products. As for the Bruce gag…well twenty seven years on, it’s still worth telling.

Listening to songs acoustically, the way they were written is one of the great traditions of roots music. It spawned MTV unplugged and brings people to queue every night outside the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. On this week’s Another Country we will celebrate that tradition in style. We welcome Kathy Mattea, Willie Watson, May Erlewine and Israel Nash into Studio One where, in the round, they will bring you songs and stories from their extensive catalogues.

Just as I was smitten by the Dylan album all those years ago, I’ll be there, sitting in the circle and enjoying every minute of it. Join us if you can this Tuesday from five past nine on BBC Radio Scotland.

Reading time: 3 min

general musings

Nostalgia

January 15, 2019 by ricky No Comments

By chance I had some time to spare in Dundee last weekend. It was an odd conglomeration of circumstances which involved waiting for my son to arrive by train and realising I had two hours alone to follow my nose around some old haunts. I was surprised to realise I hadn’t walked certain streets properly since leaving the city 37 years ago.

I found myself on The Perth Road. I’d walked this particular street in many different stages of life. In my early years with my grandparents. We’d walk along the parallel Hawkhill where they lived near The Sinderins to stand gazing for hours at trains being shunted in and out of the depot beside Magdalene Green. Stopping by walls where iron railings had been cut down, my grandmother would tell me about their requisition during the first World War. ‘Why wouldn’t they have simply used the railings to make spears?’ I’d ask her.

In later years I’d come from the east side of the city to spend valuable hours searching for bargains in Groucho’s on The Perth Road. The possibility that we could own records at a fraction of their usual price because they were preowned changed everything I listened to and in turn, my life. Eventually I lived not far from the house my grandparents had occupied and I’d walk each morning to my work along The Perth Road – a stretch of Dundee described by a friend with his tongue firmly in his cheek as ‘the Latin Quarter.’ But there was a certain logic. The University and Art school provided the city with a bohemian edge not visible in the less fashionable districts. In the late sixties it was in this part of town where the hair grew longer and the jeans more flared. Like the party Randy Newman‘s Mama told him not to attend it was here strange smelling cigarettes ‘scared me half to death.’ Here I first bumped into Dundee’s greatest ever songwriter, Michael Marra and just around the corner came face to face with Billy McKenzie in his pre Associate youth.

The two spare hours passed easily but it churned up within me such a strong sense of nostalgia I wanted to stop innocent passers by and explain what had been lost. Like Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey I felt as if I needed to explain to anyone who would listen that these streets weren’t always like this…it used to be so different. Then I realised what generations before had experienced and keep experiencing. Change is hard and you can’t go home again. It’s at this point we resort to memory and warm nostalgia. We seem to be able to block out the negative and a warm glow of the past takes over. I’m grateful for that as the real truth of what life once felt like might well be much less attractive.

So it is with records too. Going back to music we enjoyed in our youth allows us to experience something more than a memory. The music takes you to the place where you heard it first and how you felt. The joy, the disappointment, alienation, love, loneliness…all of that is brought back within a few bars. On Tuesday night we’ll hopefully create some of these moments for you as we bring you some musical nostalgia and also something to chime in the future. Listen out for George Strait, Solomon Burke and John Prine and have your ears opened to the new sounds of Jessica Pratt, Kaia Kater and Olivia Lane. We’re live on BBC Radio Scotland from five past nine. Join me if you can.

Reading time: 3 min

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And the winner is…Kacey Musgraves

Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s The Delines

Sneaking Ashley Through Printers Alley

Who’s Gonna Write The Songs?

Nostalgia

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