It’s always the way of things. I leave our AC HQ on a Tuesday night and think to myself, ‘Well we’ve played a lot of the things I really love right now…what the heck are we gonna play next week?’

Then it comes, slowly, but in they creep, the songs you just need to hear again and immediately I think I need to share them on the airwaves. What’s interesting and exciting for me is finding tracks in so many different ways: playlists, blogs, mentions and shares; all ways in which we find three minute gems we think you’ll love. Of course we have a great many folk plugging us new music all the time and this week I was really taken with a new record I was sent by White Tail Falls, aka, Irwin Sparkes who was so fed up with the music he was hearing sounding so anodyne he set up microphones in an array of locations to make his debut album. Hugely inspired by Josh T Pearson, whose album, The Last of The Country Gentleman, we enjoyed a few years back Irwin has made a beautiful debut which will intrigue and delight.

Of course what determines any week’s playlist is events. Like many folk in country music we were saddened to hear of the death of Bucky Baxter towards the end of last week. You’ve probably heard Bucky’s music quite a lot on the records of Steve Earle, Kacey Musgraves and Bob Dylan. He was a man who took to pedal steel playing mid-career and was reputed to have joined Bob’s band on the basis that he would teach Dylan how to play the instrument. Intriguingly we’ve never found out where that conversation went, but Bucky maintained he stayed in the band as long as he did because he never tried to become ‘mates. “I just worked for him. And we had a good working relationship … but I never went to his house for Thanksgiving or anything,” We’ll play you some wonderful records which feature the playing of Bucky Baxter including a great recording he made on his son, Rayland’s 2018 album, ‘Wide Awake.’

Another album I’ve loved recently is Eliza Gilkyson‘s  2020. It’s 50 years (Fifty!) since her debut album and she really keeps getting better. We want to play a song she has written based on a letter written by Woody Guthrie to the US President’s father, Fred Trump. If ever there was a time to hear the thoughts of Woody on the Trump family I think we might have found it.

A week in politics is a long time as a wise British PM once observed. Stuff happens and songs will always get you through. Gather round the wireless this Tuesday evening  if you are able and we’ll try to make life a little more bearable. We’re on BBC Radio Scotland and you can tune in from anywhere in the world on BBC Sounds.

 Nashville’s Lower Broadway during lockdown, the regular stomping ground for our correspondent Bill Demain.

When all of this started I was in the process of bringing out a new record. One of the loveliest things a few people said to me at the time was that the songs on our new album were speaking to where people were at as they listened. It was one of the loveliest things to hear that in the dark days of March, even before we knew the fullness of what we were facing, but with a sense of dread very much in the air, people were taking comfort from songs we’d put out into the world.

Over the next few weeks that thought has occurred to me too. I was playing a song in the kitchen and my wife said – that is a song for these times. It was, and as the weeks have passed so too have there been many moments when songs have come on the radio or popped up on a playlist and I’ve wanted to turn it up a little louder as it seemed to be speaking to me.

All of us over the last few weeks must have felt fear, loneliness and a little despair. At the beginning of all of this, when I was ill myself I remember looking out from my isolated bedroom on the first night of the lockdown and unable to countenance the magnitude of the profound silence that seemed to fall on my home city of Glasgow that night. I didn’t get out of that room for a week or so and drove a short distance as if driving through a dream. The world had changed and there seemed to be very little on the horizon to give us hope.

In the first days the only music I wanted to hear was classical and a day or two passed when Radio 3  would be the only thing I could listen to. Perhaps it allowed me to inhabit another world and my imagination was allowed to roam to different places and other centuries, finding myself inside the mind of great musicians whose own imagination was much bigger than anything I’d ever be able to dream up. Perhaps too it was gentler, slower less loud that rock’n’roll & soul & country and all the pop music mostly on my radar. However my first date back for any official work was my first New Tradition show on Radio 2. My dear friend and long standing producer of anything musical I ever do for the radio, Richard Murdoch said to me I should simply play the songs that are getting me through. It was the best suggestion he has ever made. That night on the radio I felt the love coming in from all across the UK as people felt strengthened, excited and happy because of music. To be in the middle of that was like doing a gig for me. The show ran itself, I merely let it all go on and rejoiced to be part of it.

A week ago I felt  the sense that this lockdown has gone on a long time. We’re all struggling to see this through and it’s lucky we’ve had some compensation from fine spring weather to ease our journey. But I think we need a musical blow-out; a short but loud burst of joy to help us over the line. So this Tuesday night we’re going to do just that. We have gathered from your generous feedback the songs you feel will help your fellow listeners breast that finishing tape. It’s A Country Jukebox where we play you songs to get you through, to get you going and most of all; songs for these times. It’s going to feel urgent, positive and a little bit emotional in all the right ways. I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts as we go live this Tuesday evening from eight o’clock on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me on text, twitter and Facebook if you can. This one’s from the heart.

I’m looking out at the Spring rather than walking in it. However it’s still a beautiful sight. I’m listening to a song I’ll be playing this week I want to share with you. It’s by Chip Taylor and it’s been in my head the last couple of weeks. It’s a spring song, which makes it special to me.

There was a time when the seasons of the year made little impact. I guess when we were younger we just didn’t bother much about the weather or its implications. However I have a strong sense of my father welcoming the long, milder days of spring as he would an old friend turning up at his house. He was pleased not to drive in the dark and as a man who went travelling the roads of Scotland perhaps he imagined he’d get to see a little more of the place. How ironic that the spring of springs – perhaps the finest I can remember has coincided with the time when we couldn’t actually enjoy it. Still, we’ve marvelled at the empty roads, the clear blue skies and the clean water flowing through our dark old cities.

There’s really nothing that has not been touched by this hell we’re living through. It’s good that people are able to survive it, that books get read and films get watched but we all know we’d all rather be talking about something else. Still when we congregate around the screen and we ‘meet’ our friends all we do is talk about it. Perhaps that’s why I feel it’s good to switch the radio over to some music. There really is so much to enjoy…and I mean records I want to hear.

On the AC we’ve been keen to support some of the many artists we play regularly who live and work near us. On this week’s show we’ll catch up with Rab Noakes who should have been celebrating 50 years since he made his album, ‘Do You See The Lights’ came out. I’ve managed to get Rab to record some thoughts on where he is, what he might have been doing and what he hopes he’ll be doing when all this is over. We’ll also hear a track from that very record and something new Rab will share with us.

Oh there’s so much more. We have a new song by Jackson Browne who takes Zhou Enlai’s famous quote about the impact of the French Revolution (It’s A Little Too Early To Tell) as the theme of his lead track from the forthcoming album. Jackson’s always an important artist to listen to and we’ll also take this opportunity to wind back and listen to something wonderful from his back catalogue.

Elsewhere there’s Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and Josh Turner talking trains and some great new records from Pharis and Jason Romero, Angelo De Augustine featuring Sufjan Stevens and Dirty Projectors. There’s also a new release from John Anderson who’s now another benefitting from Dan Auerbach‘s Easy Eye falling upon him, Kacey Musgraves and Chuck Prophet. ‘You do all this in two hours?’ I hear you cry from your social isolation. Oh we do and we will this Tuesday evening from 8 p.m. Live on BBC Radio Scotland and your BBC Sounds App. Join me if you can.

There seems to be something in the air. I admit; we’re all a little lost but even with that there’s a sense in which people seem to be looking in all sorts of strange places for musical satisfaction. I say this as someone who has no real interest in watching people being interviewed on Skype, joining Zoom performances (or watching them) or hearing recordings on someone’s phone. (I’ll take the odd fleeting moment, but an evening of it? Pu-lease!)

It seems to me that what most of us have at the moment is time. We also, if I’m not mistaken, own a lot of records and have (on our computers and phones) access to almost the entire catalogue of recorded music. At the touch of a button we can listen to the chronological output of Mozart‘s compositions…that takes care of one week, or Jimmy Rogers (another), or perhaps explore the considerable catalogue of the Bulgarian Woman’s Choir? I’d give that the full week and the bank holiday)

If any of that doesn’t grab you we will of course be playing you a fine selection of cuts, recorded in real studios with real microphones,  this coming Tuesday evening. This week we’re also going to be thinking about the place that’s often in my heart. Nashville.

Nashville would not be Nashville without…..well, that’s an interesting point. Right now nowhere looks like it once did, but I suspect the old town is feeling a little bruised. Just on the back of a tornado that ran through the city on March 2nd,  taking the lives of 26 citizens and leaving a trail of devastation in its wake the community is now, like so much of the world, in lock-down.

Although there is no surprise here, and people can and will work from home, there is something essentially social about the workings of country music’s capital that seems strange to imagine. We thought it was time we heard from one of the  residents and a man who must be missing the beat of the streets like no other, our correspondent, Bill Demain. What’s happened to the song rounds? How does the Opry keep going and will we see a return to songwriters putting songs together on their own? We’ll hear from Bill on this Tuesday’s show.

I also want to draw your attention to a couple of records which, by the end of the year, you might well treasure or at least become quite familiar. Laura Marling‘s new elpee, ‘Song For Our Daughter’ is a beautiful thing. Rich in melody, the accompanying notes describe Laura becoming a late convert to Paul McCartney‘s solo output. I’m always glad to hear this as there’s so much wrong headed Lennon love that, for reasons I sort of understand, seems to feel the need to denigrate Paul as it doffs the cap to John. Family enough Nashville is the place where you meet Beatles love head-on and I can’t think of a session or music conversation there when the fab four haven’t found their way into the conversation. So we will play you some Maccaloving Laura M and also introduce you to the joys of Gabby Barrett and Becca Mancari.

Elsewhere we’ll remind you of the joys of The Avett Brothers, Miranda Lambert, and Lyall Lovett and play you a great new track by our old pal Israel Nash. I’m pleased to say that, despite the world wide clamp down on everything that sounds like fun, the thing that still brings the most joy to me – music – is still widely available and still free to listen on the radio. Join me if you can this Tuesday on BBC Radio Scotland from eight.

Two years ago was the last time I was in Nashville. It was a busy two weeks in which we met a lot of folks, managed to write a song or two and saw some great gigs…oh and, as ever, bought a few records to take home. However I was a little worried. My producer Mr M, with his usual dedication to duty, had secured some significant artists for me to interview. Early in the week, too early for me, we were due over at Oh Boy records to interview John Prine.

Now 75% of me was excited about this but that other 25% was worried. The worry came from the fact that, despite being an admirer of John Prine’s songwriting since the seventies, I really didn’t have an extensive collection of his albums. It was like one of these dreams where you’re about to sit an exam for which you have done no revision or, the one my wife dreams often, taking to the stage without knowing your lines. In truth, I didn’t know my lines. However I had decided I would do as much homework as I could possibly squeeze in. But…..what if he started talking about something he’d expect me to know? What if I looked blank and John Prine just shook his head in despair and pointed me to the door? All these thoughts were rattling around my head as we waited in the foyer of Prine HQ /Oh Boy Records.

I am pleased to say I should never have worried. It was a perfect morning in the Germantown office of the great man. The first printed copies of the new album, ‘The Tree Of Forgiveness’ had just been delivered and the boss was wreathed in laughter and smiles.

Two years later I can understand how delighted he must have been. Little did he know (though with John’s health record I imagine it’s a thought that would often cross his mind) that the digi-packed sleeves he was lovingly examining would mark the full stop on a career spanning six decades. John died last week, one more victim of Covid19, which is taking some well loved faces from us.

There has been an outpouring of love and affection that, even in a time when we have lost many of that pioneering generation of artists, goes well beyond the usual stock eulogies. Country musicians from all sides of the tradition genuinely loved John Prine. They loved his songs, his delivery, his attitude to life (and death) and they really loved him for who he really was. Chuck Prophet (always great copy) tweeted a great story about hanging with John in the West of Ireland in a lock-in. He remembered JP enthusiastically telling him how he’d met Alex Chilton. In the New York Times Jason Isbell wrote a moving obituary which included a great tale from the road. He recalled:

A few years ago, my wife, Amanda Shires, was touring in Scandinavia with John Prine, and when they arrived in Sweden she saw him write “songwriter” on his customs form as his occupation. “When did you decide that it was OK to write ‘songwriter’ on these forms?” she asked him. “Today,” he told her. “I usually put dancer.”

The following summer after that encounter, under a leaden sky which, that very day, had sent enough rain to the streets of Glasgow to keep everyone and everything well watered for a year ahead, John Prine brought joy to Kelvingrove. He did dance that night; he danced every night as the band played the final song of the set, ‘Lake Marie.’ We clapped, cheered and laughed. We ignored the rain and felt blessed to be under the Kelvingrove moon with the man.

Many of that audience would have bought tickets for John’s return which was due last year, postponed to February but which never happened. We had all seen John’s last dance, and we were grateful.

John Prine died last week, aged seventy three. He defined the term, ‘patient with underlying health problems.’  He’d twice had cancer treatment over the last twenty odd years and, when we met, I remember feeling surprised and a little concerned that he was about to embark on a lengthy international tour. It was his life, and for forty five years it’s what he did; sang songs to people.

This Tuesday we will remind you why so many loved these songs and loved the man. We’ll play the songs that mattered and also re-visit the interview we recorded in Germantown two years ago with added content never broadcast first time around. It’s a two hour tribute to the most deserving of subjects and we’re live this Tuesday from 8 on BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.

This week we are throwing our Scottish spotlight onto Roseanne Reid. I first encountered Roseanne supporting Sam Outlaw at Glasgow’s Admiral Bar a few years back. Since then she’s supported me on a few solo shows and we’ve featured her as a guest on Another Country. More importantly than all of that she recorded her excellent debut album, Trails, in New York City with Teddy Thompson and has a whole host of live experiences under her belt.

Last week we had a short email exchange and I asked her, firstly, where she was when the impact of the crisis stopped what she was currently doing?

Before the outbreak started, I was actually due to have my busiest Spring/Summer to date. I was booked to support the Wandering Hearts on their UK tour throughout April, following that I was due to go over to Holland and Belgium for a week to do some European shows. I was then going to come back to go straight into a two week UK tour with Teddy Thompson, culminating with my first slot at Glastonbury at the end of June! Then it would have been time to start work on the new album.

So fair to say, I’m especially gutted the outbreak started when it did…

I can imagine. It certainly seems you’d be busy. Can we talk a little about Trails? How long had you taken to get the songs together that album? I remember you said you even wrote some during the recording period. Which ones were they?

Trails was written over the course of a few years – songs like ‘Amy’ and ‘Miles Away’ were ones I wrote when I was a teenager. I have to say one of the songs I’m most proud of was written within a week of going into the studio to record! ‘Out In Space’ was a last minute addition, but I think it brings something totally different to the album. Heading North was the other one that was written very close to the wire!

Since Trails came out there has been a one off song from last year called Out In Space. A fuller sound on this one too. Is that a one-off or the first song from a second album?

That release for Out In Space was just a one-off really. It was because the song was picked to feature in a film called ‘About Colonia’ last year, and it was our way of supporting the film, whilst also giving a platform to a song that people had really responded well to from the record.

The song we knew you for changed a bit from its first recording.I Love Her So became a stone-gone slab of soul! Tell me about the journey of that one? Were you glad to see it taking a different turn?

I was just as surprised as everyone else with how this song turned out! Teddy laid the foundations with his ideas for it well in advance, he told me he could envision a sort of Motown sound – but even then I couldn’t have dreamed the form it took. We recorded it on the last day the band was in the studio, and I wasn’t quite happy with how my vocal sounded. I came in to try and redo it the next day but in the end we stuck with the original. I’m so glad we did because I couldn’t imagine it sounding any different now!

‘I Love Her So’ is one of these songs that will always work just as well with a band as it does acoustically. I love having that fluidity with a piece of work!

I know you get a few gigs with country Americana artists and you were ‘discovered’ at Steve Earle’s writing camp. Do you love country music? Who are the important artists in that genre for you?

I have such a passion for the Country and Americana genre, and I love and learn from every single gig I do with these artists. I enjoy Country music for many reasons, especially the wild side of it. There’s a good-time side to Country, and there’s a real dark gritty side to it – that’s what I find myself being drawn to more and more. I listen to the greats like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and the Dixie Chicks, but also the new generation like Eric Church, The Highwomen and Jason Isbell. Great songwriters – that’s what underpins it. These people are master storytellers.

On this week’s AC you’ll hear the music of Roseanne Reid plus some wonderful new things from Jess Williamson, Arborist and Ashley McBryde as well as disappearing down a few rabbit holes of choice. It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland this Tuesday evening.