I’m writing this week’s blog from a hotel room overlooking the beautiful city of Bruges. It’s Sunday morning and I’ve spent the last couple of days here and before that in Utrecht. We have been performing the final Deacon Blue shows of this year. Last night’s gig was meant to happen a year ago and Utrecht in late 2020. We all know how those plans worked out.

Getting to this point allows me to reflect a little on what we have endured and what we have secured. When lockdown started we did wonder what would remain of the life we knew. As our little bus drove back from the show last night we allowed ourselves to remember how strange the early days of touring felt in the last few months of last year. Even a full eighteen months after lockdown the fear that, at any point, the tour would stop with one positive lateral flow test pervaded almost every second of our journey. Eventually, as you may already know, we had to come off the road and it took until Saturday to complete a tour which went on sale in late 2019! If you’re one of those who booked a ticket then, can I thank you for your patience.

The pandemic also changed the way we did radio. For a few Saturdays (on my Radio 2 shows) and every Tuesday evening Richard Murdoch, my faithful and only producer, and I came into a deserted BBC Pacific Quay and celebrated country music. However we still haven’t gone back to the frequency of Americana/Country artists coming through Glasgow that we enjoyed in pre Covid times. There has been the occasional session in Studio One but we’re still not back to where we were. We’ve made up for some of this by recording longer conversations down the line and some of these with Allison Russell, Lori McKenna, Eric Church and Luke Combs have been memorable, moving and life affirming. I’m grateful too that sometimes, with the help of seeing each other on screen, we’ve managed more honest conversations that may not have been possible when artists were in the middle of a busy touring schedule.

However, we still have a little more space on our weekly show that we would normally have been allowed. So I want to continue our country instruments journey by celebrating the key role played in some of our favourite records by the fiddle. This, you understand is not plural, there may well be a night given over to Countrypolitan strings in future weeks, but this is simply the lonesome fiddle as played on records by The Chicks, Stephen Stills, Hank Williams, Emmylou Harris and Bob Wills. You’ll hear Byron Berline, Joshua Hedley and on her original instrument the talent that is Rhiannon Giddens.

We will also have some fine new records from Amanda Shires, John Fullbright and Tenille Townes. You can hear us this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland from five past eight or at any time of your choosing on BBC Sounds. Do join me if you can.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new guitar. I haven’t bought a new acoustic guitar for the best part of thirty years. I’d come back from a gig, opened my case and discovered some damage to the side of my trusty old Gibson J45 and it’s currently enjoying some loving restoration.

I’d been eyeing the new acoustic for about fifteen years. In all honesty I know nothing about guitars and, it is only occasionally that I pick one up or play it live, but I know when a guitar suits me, and my new little Martin (thanks for asking) suits me just fine. A guitar should be played and I intend to take this one travelling with me next month when I hit the road, even though most of my show will feature the piano.

So often I’ve despaired at guitars being bought by collectors who stick them behind glass. Any time I’ve been asked to sign a guitar I have mixed feelings knowing the chances of someone playing the thing will be diminished as soon as the magic marker has defaced the woodwork. Guitars are beautiful things, designed by experts and made by true luthiers who put love and care into every step. The least you’d expect is for it to get a moment in the sun.

In the Country Music Hall Of Fame in Nashville you will find an image of a guitar with a quote by Harlan Howard which states, ‘Country Music is three chords and the truth.’ One always imagines these three chords being played on the guitar. We know what the chords are too. In Music Row terms it’s the 1, 4 and the 5. Pick your own key or apply a capo. If you’re in any doubt about the potency of roots music consider if you will how many great songs have been fashioned using that simple formula. The simplicity is not to be derided but rather it is better to marvel at the imagination and creativity that continues to reinvent such a limited palette.

So it is that on this week’s Another Country we will pick some great country guitar moments. There will be twangs, strums, riffs and picks from across the years. Listen out for the moment where Gram Parsons passes the baton to the great James Burton with the immortal phrase, ‘Take it from me James.’ If all of that is not enough we will also introduce you to another of our guest presenters who will be sitting in the AC hot seat in my absence in late September and October. I won’t let you into that little secret, but you will be delighted that one of our all time favourite artists and writers will be bringing you their country faves in the near future.

There will be lots of great acts on this week’s show but new records too from Ingrid Andress, Aaron Raitiere and The National with Bon Iver. It all kicks off this Tuesday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland (all frequencies) and BBC Sounds at a time and place of your choosing.

My friend lived a few miles to the east of us in the little seaside town of Carnoustie. I was mid-primary school age and it was the summer holidays when my folks had been visiting his folks and, although Pete was a couple of years older I was allowed to stay over one Sunday night. I don’t remember this visit very well, although we remain life long friends, but do remember that during the night there was a violent summer storm. Lightning lit up the sky and the two of us enjoyed the thrill of waking up in the hours after midnight as we stood at the window and counted down the gaps between the thunder claps and the explosions of electricity across the horizon. The added possibility that we might be in some kind of danger only added spice to the whole adventure.

I thought of this the other night as the thunder and rain broke the Glasgow heatwave and our garden enjoyed the cool, fresh rain and suddenly everything felt a little greener again. The summer always brings the best contrasts. Lightning storms in Tuscany or southern France are part of the fun of the holiday and I remember standing out on the pavement to record the giant thunder cracks that seemed to shake the foundations of Sao Paulo when I visited some years back. It’s maybe only when we are very young that the full force of the weather makes a lasting impression. There was another summer evening when I stayed with a friend at his aunt’s house further up the east coast and it seemed as if the rains would wash us away so constant was the downpour. Torrents of rainwater gushed from drains and spilled over from the viaduct that overhung the small coastal town picking up speed as they tumbled down the narrow streets towards the shore.

Then there was the summer, more recently, where my wife, our dog and myself followed the North Coast 500 in a camper van only to have a weather front cross over during our one-night stay in Durness. How the wind blew and the van rattled as we tried to get to sleep in the storm. To wake the next day and find that all was calm and the beach had returned to its summer splendour was the best of surprises.

So it may be this August Tuesday evening brings you indoors for the first time for a while as you take shelter from whatever the weather has in store. If so I feel our little radio show might prove to be a great friend. We’ll bring you songs about bad habits by some old and new artists, explain how the piano can be as down-home as the banjo or the pedal steel and remind you of some country songs you may not have heard in a while. Listen out for Kelsea Ballerini, Jason Isbell, Patsy Cline, Charlie Rich and Waxahatchee. There will be new music from First Aid Kit, John Moreland and Ferris and Sylvester. It all starts just after eight o’clock this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland FM or on BBC Sounds whenever you like. Do join me if you can.

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.