I spent last Saturday in a record shop. It’s not so often I find myself in record shops these days, so it was something of a novelty to have access to this one after hours. The shop in question was in trendy Shoreditch where my publishers had picked for my book launch in London. The upside of this was I found two vinyl offerings (one of which) I will be spinning on this week’s AC and a fine record it is too.

As I flicked through the racks and spent the following few hours talking with my good friend, journalist Paul Sexton about the book as well as every other musical thing, I found myself laughing, thinking how little had changed in record shops over the years. Here we were to launch my book, to my audience with no other customers in the store yet being assaulted by the most esoteric, obscure and frankly inappropriate playlist which was being spun out by one of the staff. None of us wanted to hear it, but hey, why would that matter, if the staff were happy?

In the seventies this was the norm. Going into a record shop was to take your pride in your hands and be grateful that no one hit you on the way out. It’s 1975 and I’m in Bruce’s Records on Reform St. I find myself telling the assistant that I’m interested in reggae because I’ve just discovered Bob Marley. He smiles condescendingly and tells me I’m a sucker to commercial reggae and really I need to go much deeper if I really want some roots music. That was the end of that conversation. If you did hear something you half liked you might pluck up the courage to ask what was playing and hope the guy (it was usually a bloke) didn’t laugh at your ignorance. Worse still was the moment you took your choices up to the counter only for some smartass creep with green hair and nose rings to smirk their way through the purchase and pass your record bag over to you as if handling toxic waste. ‘Thanks,’ you would offer before fastening up your duffel coat and heading back to the rain soaked street.

Ah…the old days. How it all returned to me last Saturday. However my record shop adventures have led to us deciding to make vinyl front and centre on this week’s AC. You will hear great new records by Margo Cilker, Amanda Shires, Joe Pug, Bill Monroe, Carson McHone and those Leeds childhood friends Amy and Lily, Sunflower Thieves. As ever we’ll be on at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland FM (there’s football on digital) and of course any time and place you like after that on BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about C2C over the years is they have attempted to address the gender balance which has been such a problematic area for country music over the years. If you think this is a new issue then it really isn’t. On this week’s AC we’ll play you the first ever female No 1 country song. It’s a great track by Kitty Wells but was possibly deemed a suitable contender for radio play as it answered (and borrowed from) Hank Thompson’s ‘The Wild Side of Life.’ In Kitty’s ‘It Wasn’t God Who made Honky Tonk Angels’ she sets out the plight of women who are married to men who ‘think they’re still single.’ That the next seventy years or so would do little to change the gender dialogue says something about country music that really needs to be addressed: Women are getting a bad deal.

Let’s return to my C2C point for a moment. I’ve been lucky enough to be at most of the festivals since its inception and have seen so many great women artists. From the top of my head I’m remembering great sets by Lady A, Little Big Town, Reba McEntire, Kacey Musgraves, Ashley McBryde, Cam and Miranda Lambert. I’ve missed out a few too, but essentially there is an attempt to make sure that on any given evening the audience will get to see almost as many women as men. (though it’s not totally balanced ….yet ….and there is a real need to embrace African American acts in the coming years). If I’m being kind to the promoters here however, it’s because they have made a far greater effort than the programmers of country radio stations who, in 2021, allowed female artists to take up 10% of airtime. Just hold that thought for a second.

All of this comes with the understanding that the more imaginative contributions to the genre have come from female writers and artists. It is also they who have managed to cross over into mainstream popular music more often and with much greater success. It is also sobering to reflect that this crossover has often been propelled by the wholesale snub they have received from the denizens of Music Row. Think of Kacey Musgraves, Taylor Swift, Maren Morris or Shania Twain and of course the great Dolly Parton and try to come up with names (in the last 40 years) from male artists who have managed similar mainstream success. I’m afraid I can’t.

On this week’s Another Country we will reflect on all of this with our good friend Marissa Moss, author of Her Country – How The Women of Country Became The Success They Were Never Supposed To Be. Marissa’s book is making waves since its release a few weeks ago and it is as good a testament to the state of country music over the last ten to twelve years as I know. We’ll be talking through why women have been airbrushed from airplay and also looking at why LGBTQ+ artists and writers are making their voices heard. Marissa’s book brilliantly sets out what happens when a great talent like Mickey Guyton attempts to break into country radio as an African American female artist. Spoiler alert: it took a while and there is still no happy ending.

I recorded the conversation with Marissa last week, so I can tell you, this is a great listen which is interspersed with many of the artists whose names come up in her book. As well as the ones we’ve mentioned you’ll hear The Highwomen, The Chicks, Suzy Bogguss, Brandy Clark, Margo Price and Tanya Tucker. It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland FM this Tuesday evening and at the time and place of your choosing on BBC Sounds thereafter. Join me if you can.

It’s the first Monday of July as I write this on, what would have always been, the first day of our children’s school holidays. As I thought over this towards the end of the last week of June I experienced a strange nostalgia for summers past. There was a frisson of excitement as the last weeks of summer term passed. Children would return with drawings and folders of a year’s work, plays and sports days would be attended by an excited family and as the calendar clicked through those final days of June an anticipation of the holidays began.

Tasks like packing, boarding cats and dogs and leaving instructions for neighbours to water a flower basket or two all seemed hugely worthwhile in lieu of the approaching summer vacation. The roof box would be secured onto our big old shooting brake and we’d wind our way south to warmer weather and the lure of the Mediterranean sea. Two of my daughters still have lingering resentments about how often I played the new Rufus Wainwright album over their S Club 7 CD on the long stretch from Calais to Lyon, before we made our overnight stop. On the best days we all fell in love with the same songs and I still have a lingering fondness for Reach by the S Club as it reminds me of happy times. Our youngest, the boy, was only pacified on one Spanish break by repeated plays of Coldplay’s The Scientist which (aged 3) he liked to call ‘Going Back to The Stars.’ I’m not sure that isn’t a title worth exploring in another song.

So it was these memories drifted through my head as our train wound its way back to Glasgow this weekend after a visit to see the same son, now 21 years old, in his London base. This weekend found none of our offspring near home at all and I found myself feeling glad that the first week of school holiday weather wasn’t going to affect any of their immediate plans.

The upside of all of this is I get to spend the early part of summer each Tuesday in the AC studios. As life moves forward we have managed to record some significant sessions and conversations which we will be broadcasting over the next few weeks. First up is the round we recorded with three of the recent OH BOY Records artist. On this week’s show you can hear songs from Emily Scott Robinson, Kelsey Waldon and Arlo McKinley as they showcase songs from their current albums in the round in our very own Studio One. It’s a magical space in which we’ve recorded some great sessions over the many years we’ve been on air and for the first time in a long while we welcomed four musicians to play, sing and talk. You’ll hear their songs and stories, why John Prine signed them to his label and their own tribute to the man himself. It’s a fascinating hour which will fill the second part of this week’s show. In the first hour we’ll share some great new records by Hannah Read and Michael Starkey, Angel Olsen and Joe Pug. We do this in two hours on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening . Join me if you can.

Like one in thirty of my fellow Scots I succumbed to the old Covids last week. I was lucky enough to test negative in time for the big Deacon Blue show we had at the weekend at Blenheim Palace (thanks if you were there), but wasn’t able to be on-air last week for the AC. I’m fine now and feel slightly relieved that I managed to catch the virus without having to cancel any more live gigs.

So it’s meant we have lots and lots of new music to play you this week as well as welcoming back an old friend. Darden Smith returns for the first time since he last visited us in 2013. Darden comes to play songs and talk about his new album Western Skies, which is really a fascinating listen. It’s accessible but has such great layers and wise insights from a song writer who has always been a vital listen. Having spent a tour with Darden I know how great his company can be, but I also enjoy his company when I hear his songs. There’s a deep truth in this record celebrating his own home state of Texas as well as throwing a light on the business of getting older. I love songwriters who grow old with you and reflect that narrative in their output. If you do then the second hour of this week’s AC is for you.

We have lots to play you before then including new tracks from future guest Arlo McKinley, old friend Courtney Marie Andrews and the ever green Carrie Underwood. We’ll celebrate Steve Earle’s tribute to Jerry Jeff Walker by playing a track from the new album, a great Jerry Jeff cover and a song from the man himself. We do all of this in a two hour show and you can hear it all on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight this Tuesday evening or at a time and place of your choosing on BBC Sounds. Live or later, join me if you can.

Elsewhere on the show we have the wonderful new title track to Mary Gauthier’s equally fine new album, ‘Dark Enough To See The Stars,’ new things from Anais Mitchell as well as someone fabulous new recordings from Josh Rouse and Midland. We do it all in two hours of Another Country from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland or on BBC Sounds whenever or wherever you choose. Join me if you can.

Over the last few weeks, in my live absence from the show, I’ve been on a long holiday on the west coast of the USA. We travelled quite a few miles starting off staying with my daughter in the Bay Area and taking in the California Coast, Nevada and Arizona. It’s only three states but even within that small sample it wasn’t difficult to conclude that there are many Americas.

As a kid I dreamed of visiting the US. I was too busy saving up for instruments during my college years to engage in long travel adventures so I never visited the US until I was thirty years old. Since my first visit I have gone back nearly thirty times and, am excited to meet my first grandchild who will be born in California this summer. It’s a country that always reveals new characteristics on each successive visit and these last few weeks proved no exception to the rule. As much as I love America the division of the last few years seems to loom larger (even to the casual tourist) than it has ever done on any previous visit.

That our holiday was bookended by two atrocious gun massacres cast a long shadow. I’ve been in America when mass shootings have taken place. Ironically I was on holiday there when the children of Dunblane were killed in the worst (non terrorist) mass killing to have ever occurred in the UK. That the name of that town still resonates with all those who remember that event illustrates the contrast in responses of our two countries. In the US however, there are simply too many towns to have suffered similar events for their names to become synonymous with gun violence. What has become more apparent to me in recent years is our outrage at gun ownership is also matched in many parts of the US. Equally there is a large percentage of the population there for whom the only answer to the growing violence is to encourage more people to get armed.

What has interested me is the righteous anger, sorrow and naked outrage by many of the regular artists we support on the AC. You may remember also that last week’s special guest, Eric Church, tried to suggest some gun law reform after the biggest mass shooting ever, which directly affected the country community. That Eric was quickly shut down and spent the next year or so refusing all interviews explains some of the problem reformers are facing. It’s not a great career move in country music to support gun ownership reform.

There are many good voices within the wider country community however. It’s noticeable too how the sense seems to come from women. In all the hand wringing and emotion I witnessed on TV press conferences it was overwhelmingly men who defended the status quo while women…and particularly mothers who wept and called for change. It’s been good to see so many of the women we play regularly on the AC show courage and leadership on gun reform. Let’s make sure we amplify their voices over all the noise that currently fills the airwaves.

We’ll play many of these voices this week as we catch up on the great stories and songs country music tells so well. Join me this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland for two hours of great music. It’s country music…our way.