I’m still on a high after Richard and I went down to King Tuts yesterday to meet up with The Alabama Shakes and despite the best efforst of their Tour Manager to derail the encounter we met up with Brittany Howard – charm itself – for a long chat which we will broadcast soon. I took my 11 year old Shakesloving son to the soundcheck and my 19 year old daughter to the gig. The Rosses are all smiling today.

Let’s cut to music. Here’s what I’ve been listening to:

The new Tom Jones album which not only includes that Leonard Cohen cover, but  remarkable versions of Bad As Me by Tom Waits and Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem. Right now though I’ve just had my ears bent by Kev  (one of our Facebookers) into listening to Honey Honey and Father John Misty (Josh Tillman) is a record you will surely get to love soon.

On holiday Monday the family took a trip with pals to the seaside and played the Sweet Billy Pilgrim album from beginning to end. It’s stayed in Mrs R’s car since and I doubt I’ll see it again. Such a lovely record on every level and, though time will forbid this Friday, I fully intend to play more soon. I’ve been enjoying new tracks from Lambchop, Fire Mountain, The Soft Hills and the new album by Beach House.  A kind friend me sent me Roy Orbison’s Monument singles collection and it is quite amazing how great the singing, the songs and the mono production is.

Phew….. I think that about covers it…but there has been so much.

So we’ll play you some Tom, some Soft Hills and certainly Beach House on Friday. As always we’ll find something magical by Woody Guthrie and I think you’ll like this week’s choice.

A few weeks back Dave Alvin popped in to play us some songs and have an extended blether. There was so much in this extended chat that Richard has devoted the second half of Friday’s show to Dave and his music. We’ll play Dave, The Blasters, Dave and Tom Russell, Dwight Yoakem and you’ll be in the company of a great American songwriter. Even if you are not familiar with Dave Alvin I know you’ll love this very special night. Dave is company you certainly want to keep.

So we move from American Post Punk  to Willie Nelson (forgot to mention him earlier and his cover of Pearl Jam!) via Beach House to Johnny Ace. It’s all just a regular Friday night thing. Don’t miss a minute of it. We start at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

I won’t lie to you, I am having a very quiet morning after a particularly busy spell. Our album is complete, I have finished my run of Sunday Morning shows and am having an extended breakfast with Mrs. Ross, there’s a promise of a long walk already made to the dog and we’re playing Hand Picked Songs by The Louvin Brothers in the kitchen. So what is it about country music that makes it appropriate for any given mood? It suits the sunny day when you accept that life is really not so bad after all, it accompanies the devastation of loss perfectly and, so often, it seems to speak directly to the person who is just getting on with the mundanity of the everyday. But when I met up with Chuck Prophet yesterday he gave me the best answer yet…‘you’ve got to have your heart in the right place if you want to get it broken, and country music will do it for you.’

So thank you Chuck for articulating what I have felt in my bones for such a long time. On the subject of heartbreak we have  Ray Charles, Tammy Wynette and Red Sky July standing ready to break yours and Marty Stuart and Flatt and Scruggs to get you back on the road again.

Our special guests this week are this family…

The Band Perry will explain how their music has taken country music by storm over the last couple of years in the States and how overnight success in country terms, sometimes takes a little longer than you might expect. You’ll like what you hear about The Perrys as we talk of the south, gothic literature and what to expect from your folks if you’re family decide to all be in the band at once.

I want to introduce you to an album that might well have taken over as my new favourite of this year. It comes from England and I do think you might just love it. The artist is Sweet Billy Pilgrim and no, they’re not from Nashville…Buckinghamshire actually.

Sweet Billy Pilgrim

And we’ll also take a quick skip past the shelves of John Peel’s Record Collection and see what gems lie lurking there. All from five past eight on Friday evening on BBC Radio Scotland

Shall we start with the mercy first?

Phil Madeira is a Nashville songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has become one of Emmylou Harris’s Red Dirt Boys these last few years. You can see him action with Emmylou on this week’s NPR’s Prairie Home Companion from The Ryman in Music City.

A couple of years back he found himself watching an American TV Evangelist so full of hatred and xenophobia (and no doubt a few other phobias)  he wondered aloud, ‘what if people actually discovered God was Love?’ His wondering led to him creating Mercyland – Hymns For The Rest Of Us an album of songs with artists including Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, The Civil Wars and The Carolina Chocolate Drops. On Friday we’ll play some of the music, find out how Phil got all these people involved and what he asked them to come up with in the first place. On Sunday I’ll talk to Phil more about why he felt it so necessary to ask the question in the first place and, yes, I’ll play you some more songs too.

I’ll also have a conversation with one of the AC’s favourite artistes: Laura Veirs. (whatever happened to that ‘i’ before ‘e’ rule?) Laura is from Oregon and we loved her July Flame record a lot and since she and her husband Tucker Martine (our fave producer) have had their first baby we have also grown to love Laura’s album of children’s songs, ‘Tumblebee.’ We talk Tucker, tumbles and Carole Kay with her on Friday night.

We will also celebrate some great new music from Don Williams, Jack White and er…..The Chieftains (but they have T Bone Burnett and Bon Iver in tow). It’s Willie Nelson’s birthday next week and we’ll celebrate that early with a great new song from next month’s new release.

We will also pay tribute to this man:

Chris Ethridge not only played in two of the bands who gave us Country Rock but also wrote some of the songs most associated with that great flowering of sixties music. It all starts on Friday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

This Sunday…

….will be my last for a few months so I hope you can join me. I have already mentioned I’ll be talking to Phil Madeira but you will need to get up early to hear about the life of Helena Kennedy. Barrister, Dame, Civil Rights activist and all round good-egg, Helena joins me to talk about her early life in Glasgow and her many battles for justice in court and the House of Lords.

I will also be talking with the director Sara Ishaq about her amazing film documentary, Karama Has No Walls. 

This was filmed during the brutal crushing of the Yemeni uprising last year. We’ll hear from Anne Ellis about Bahai art and we’ll discuss how Roman Catholic laity are facing up to the challenges they face squaring belief and practice in modern, changing times. We’ll play some great music too…

See you Sunday at seven on BBC Radio Scotland.

On Friday night we will be joined by a man who knows a lot about America. He’s a man who also knows a thing or two about America’s greatest living song writer Bob Dylan. To tell that story Tom Russell went back to Bob’s home state, Minnesota and thought about the vision and precocious talent that exploded onto the world in 1962. Tom will talk about immigration, art and his writing relationship with the great Gretchen Peters. He’ll also sing some killer songs from his fine recent album too.

Tom's the one on the left

We’ll have some interesting things from two old friends: First Caitlin Rose – whose music we have loved these last couple of years and who also managed to be our best guest ever for saying the unsayable about song-writing-rounds among other things…Caitlin, we needed to hear some of that!

Caitlin..the naughtiest girl we've ever had on the show

Then CW Stoneking who made such a huge impression when he performed at one of these very rounds over Celtic Connections. (We like to have it both ways) There will be news too of another old friend of the show who is about to get back together with his old band…..but I’ll tell you more about that one on Friday. We’ll also hear some beautiful new songs from Patrick Watson, Bowerbirds and will play a piece of music for Adam, my regular blog correspondent…my friend, it’s the least I can do. In amongst that you’ll hear a whole load of reasons why we still love country music. Friday is the day before Record Store Day so join us from five past eight when the needle goes down at BBC Radio Scotland HQ.

On Sunday.

I will be talking to the inspirational Hamish Montgomery. For years Hamish was the director of the Tom Allan Centre in Glasgow where he introduced the idea of pastoral counselling. Tom is also an accomplished painter and we’ll talk to him about his life in art too.  In the light of Channel 4’s Derek and The Undateables we’ll discuss how people with disability are viewed in the media.

I’ll also play you some of the recording I did in Brazil a few weeks back when I went back to look at the work of Landless Movement there. …. For those of you who want to read more I am enclosing the blog from Brazil I did at the time. All that and Matthew Johnstone’s on his new book The Quiet Mind. There’s a lot to get through so join me from five past seven on Sunday morning on BBC Radio Scotland.

Here’s my Blog from Brazil…

More than a decade after his first trip, Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross returned to Brazil to discover how Christian Aid partner MST, the Landless People’s Movement, is working to help poor Brazilians get land of their own.

Brazil is one of the world’s biggest economies, but one of its most unequal countries. Two thirds of the country’s land is owned by just 3% of the population. Much of it lies unused, while millions of poor Brazilians have nothing.

The Scottish singer, songwriter and broadcaster hopes his visit will highlight the achievements and new challenges being faced in an increasingly unequal society.

Introduction:

Under the Brazilian constitution, land which is not being used can be claimed for redistribution to people who have no land. Christian Aid partner MST, the Landless People’s Movement, helps make sure that this rhetoric becomes reality.

Since their foundation in 1984, MST protest camps and legal actions have enabled more than 350,000 landless families, 1.5 million people, to get land of their own – the first step to economic security.

Ricky will spend some time in Sao Paulo where he will see how Christian Aid partners are working with some of the city’s most vulnerable citizens, and will then return 250 miles north to the town of Promissao, where he will meet with people who are making new lives for themselves with the support of MST.

Follow his blog to find out more about what he learns and who he meets along the way.

23^rd February – Going back

In 1998 I was asked to visit Brazil and in particular, the work of MST in the state of Sao Paulo. This was a great experience for me then and the memories of that trip remain with me to this day.

What did I learn? 

I learned that, no matter how impoverished we perceive our own country to be, there is a deeper, sadder and more brutal poverty in the developing world than we can ever imagine. Getting the opportunity to see this at first hand is wholly worthwhile.

I also understood the real importance of fair land distribution: how can any society expect people to commit to their own betterment if they remove access to the places where this can happen?

Finally I understood the reality of a theology of liberation that unites salvation with true freedom. Seeing people celebrating mass after years of struggle was a wholly different experience of the Eucharist than I had ever had before.

Next week I will return to Sao Paulo, to Promissao and see again what is happening to the people of MST. I will try to tell you as much as I can along the way. I hope to meet old friends, see some children who are now adults and meet some new friends.

Till then, até-logo. Ricky Ross.

29^th February – A warm welcome to Sao Paulo

It’s my first morning in Sao Paulo and despite my comfortable accommodation with my Scottish Brazilian hosts, the mosquitos still love me.

We got here last night around rush hour and I discovered that rush hour lasts a good three hours in Sao Paulo.

Mara, the Christian Aid country manager for Brazil, met us at the airport and on the journey I peppered her with questions. But in the gathering dark it was difficult to make out much of what we passed in the car other than a sprawling mass of urban living. Estimates about the size of greater Sao Paulo vary, but a conservative estimate is that 12 million people live here.

Helping people in poverty out of poverty

One of the projects I hope to see tomorrow is a recycling cooperative from Christian Aid partner Gaspar Garcia Human Rights Centre . This involves homeless people from the city centre who gather rubbish – cardboard, plastic etc and recycle it to enable them to survive.

Gaspar Garcia helps people gain the skills they need to earn a basic wage, while also giving support and advice to help them get off the streets. The cooperative now runs a small business supporting these people and we’ll see that tomorrow.

On the way here a bedraggled man, in a full-length plastic coat to keep out the daily tropical storms, was piling cardboard and paper onto a precarious looking supermarket trolley. I suspect he is one of those I will meet tomorrow.

However, right now I sit in my host’s serene garden, interrupted by nothing more than the drone of the gardening tools and the chirp of tropical birds. It is a gorgeous day (27º) and after yesterday’s very long journey I’m very grateful to be sitting here in this beautiful place.

1^st March – Meeting the partners

Ricky meets our partners in Sao Paulo and sees why preparations for the 2014 World Cup aren’t necessarily benefitting the city’s poor. 

It’s the end of a long day and we’re standing in a rubbish dump. When I say rubbish dump I should be much more accurate; where we are standing is right next to a rubbish dump and it is a recycle centre called ‘Coopere Centro’ and there is a very satisfied smile on Rene’s face.

Rene Ivo Goncalves is one of the founding coordinators of Gaspar Garcia, a neighbourhood human rights centre supported by Christian Aid here in Sao Paulo. Rene’s satisfaction is not misplaced. He’s been a fine guide on our tour round some of the work being carried out in the city and he’d be right to feel proud.

Rene

However, he’s also pointing to the roof of Coopere which he designed and built…and heck, it looks good too. Coopere is a recycling cooperative which takes people who may otherwise be eeking out a living on the street and brings them into one of the earliest recycling waste centres in Sao Paulo.

Video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8aV8naqUgE&feature=player_embedded

Support comes from Gaspar Garcia and throughout the day we have been made aware of how important their work is. There is a movement abroad to cleanse this sprawling mass and the city centre is undergoing a huge change to show the world a new improved Sao Paulo in 2014 for the World Cup.

However, the cost of this is to move thousands of families out of their poor housing without offering them real alternatives. Many of these families will be squatting in old property or bits of land where they will live in one roomed houses with next to no sanitation and rather precarious power supplies.

Gaspar Garcia offers these families support and legal advice in how to establish permanent tenure of their dwellings or organising them against sudden expulsions organised to beautify the city in time for 2014.

If you want to gauge how serious a threat this is I asked Benedito Barbosa, a lawyer from the centre, if he now would prefer the World Cup not to happen and he gravely nodded.

Had he known how bad the outcome would be for these families he said he wished it had never been planned for Brazil. From a football loving country that’s quite a statement. Tomorrow I go to the countryside and return to meet some old friends who have made the land their own in Promissao.

6^th March – Towards Promissao

Jen (my Christian Aid travelling companion) said to me yesterday,’What has been your favourite moment so far?’

My favourite moment really wouldn’t have happened to me had a series of slight misadventures not taken place…

Firstly we were delayed getting out of São Paulo due to heavy traffic on Thursday. With so many people coming along with us in our minibus, various items had been forgotten and so we were already getting near to the end of the daylight by the time we broke down just outside Bauru.

By the time a brilliant ‘Dunkirk’-like flotilla of MST friends vehicles picked us up and whisked us on our way to Promissão the dark was falling and we could only hope we would catch the sights again tomorrow.

It was the gathering dark however that allowed me to witness one of the most amazing changes since I’d been here the last time. As we headed towards Promissão, Mara pointed to both sides of the road where we could see little twinkling lights breaking through the night.

These were the lights of Dandara, the encampment I had visited in 1998, now a settled community with houses and farms dotted all around. It went on for miles.

My thoughts turned back to having coffee and bread in the tents by the roadside and asking people if they had ever expected to see a day when they would be living on their own land.

Seeing the task ahead of them I often wondered how possible it would be to achieve success, but on that long road at the end of a long journey I realised how completely the MST families have realised their dream.

Video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xrGlQXvXFqA

8^th March – Almost home

I am nearly home. Amsterdam seems a long way from home, but you know you can’t be too far away when the British tabloids are on sale at the newsstand.

It’s now that I think of some of the amazing people we met over the last week…

Rene Ivo Gonçalves

A selfless campaigner on human rights whose work with homeless and recycling informal workers in and around the centre of São Paulo continues at the Gaspar Garcia Centre.

Claudia Praxedes

Who joined us on our way to Promissão where she lived as a child in the previous Dandara encampment. She is now a full-time educator at MST.

Our hosts Luiz and Lourdes

Who gave us their beds at the settlement of Reunidas and, having slept on sofas for the night, serenaded us on their veranda with old folk songs in beautiful harmony before we left the next morning.

Mineirinho

A travelling organiser and singer with MST. His great spirit typifies so much of the movement. Perhaps most importantly he makes everyone he meets laugh. A real gift.

Gloria

A friend from 1998. Then and now at the heart of the community – serving food, growing vegetables, looking after children and organising the next phase of the struggle.

Gloria’s mother Argentina Maria was killed – some say murdered by vengeful farmers – coming off a bus outside the encampment of Dandara where she was visiting and helping families in 2002.

A mural of Argentina Maria takes pride of place on the wall of the community centre at Reunidas.

Luis

A communications officer of MST who has joined the movement to share his expertise, despite not growing up in an MST settlement and coming from the city.

Itelvina Masioli and Antonio Miranda

At MST headquarters in São Paulo. Articulate, strong and considered in their understanding of rights for landless people.

Having grown up on settlements themselves they are now with the movement full time, working to realise the promise the Constitution of Brazil proclaims… that every person should have access to the land to produce food for all.

One last story…

Before I go back to life in Scotland, let me share one last story… we took a little trip along the road from Reunidas to Dandara and met Lucia de Souse, who used to camp on the roadside near here. Now she and her husband live in a little house in the middle of their own farm.

The house is by no means luxurious, but it is a dream away from the tent in which she stayed for seven years.

Behind her bright blue front door there hangs a story which explains so much about Lucia and MST – her front door keys.

At the end of the day she locks her door; not because she fears crime in Dandara – it’s not that kind of place – it’s because she can. For many years nothing more than plywood, bamboo and plastic came between her and the elements and now she has a tiled roof, a brick house and a locking front door.

From her kitchen window she can see her cattle in her own field. That is quite a change from when I saw her and many others all those years ago on the roadside.

Thank you

Finally I want to say a huge thanks to all of the staff at Christian Aid in Scotland especially my great companion Jennifer, and Mara, João, Christina and Ana in Brazil who pulled so many things together to make this trip possible. I should also pay a huge tribute to my hosts Christiana and Eduardo who looked after me in São Paulo.

I think there are at least two people touching down in Glasgow today who would happily call themselves friends of MST.

Till the next time folks!

What next?

You can view a slideshow of Ricky’s trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54878626@N04/sets/72157629270215144/

Read more about Christian Aid in Brazil.

Make a donation and help us continue the work of amazing partners like MST.

Take action on the root causes of poverty – email the Prime Minister and urge him to put the poor first at the G20.

On Friday night we welcome back two friends of the show: Brenley and Lisa from Madison Violet. We first met them a couple of years ago when we discovered their album No fool For Trying. Then they were two Canadian women touring in the UK to a fairly new audience. Since then they’ve received some great reactions to their music and have toured extensively at home, in the USA, Australia and in Europe. Lots has happened and they’ve even found time to make that much-expected follow on album.

On Friday you can hear how all of that has effected them personally and how they separate the professional from the social as they sing songs of broken hearts and old loves night after night. It’s a fascinating insight into life as a touring musician and should be a good listen for anyone who thinks they are cut out for a life on the road. As always they brought in their selection of banjos, mandolins, fiddle and guitars and performed a brilliant session for us. They are in a select group of artists who have visited us three times or more on Another Country and I think you will realise that makes them very special indeed.

Brenley and Lisa.. Old faves returning...

As ever there’s much new stuff to play you. Look out for songs from Chuck Prophet, Vince Gill and  Ray Wylie Hubbard as well as more from The Deep Dark Woods and Alabama Shakes albums.

New faves..The Deep Dark Woods

We haven’t forgotten that Merle Haggard turned seventy five last week and as ever Richard Murdoch has found you some old gems and a song from Woody Guthrie in this centenary year. I’m excited just writing this stuff…wait to we start blasting the speakers! It all starts at five past eight on Friday evening. BBC Radio Scotland.

On Sunday..

Jackie Malton

I’ll spend the first hour of the show in the company of the woman Lynda LaPlante based her great character DCI Jane Tennyson on. Jackie Malton is a former Chief Inspector in the Met and she’ll talk with me about being a highly promoted female cop, share her stories and some of her favourite music. I’ll find out why a woman as busy and popular as Esther Rantzen is feeling lonely and what she plans to do about it. Gillean MacLean, a minister on the Island of Arran, and I will dissect “The Godless Boys,”

a debut novel by Naomi Wood set on an island that sounds very like Gillean’s Island.(please excuse that pun) As ever, lots of great music you’d never hear (Prince, Wilson Pickett, India Arie) unless you’re up to join me. It’s all from seven on Sunday morning on BBC Radio Scotland.

It’s my delight to be on the airwaves over Easter weekend. On Easter Sunday morning we’ll celebrate the most optimistic day in the Christian calendar with Chris Foxon. Chris is a Methodist Minister in Partick, Glasgow. In perhaps one of  the most moving and life affirming stories Chris will share his own Easter story which took him from despair to hope and made him re-evaluate the basis of his Christian Faith.

We’ll also hear the voices of some young people who would like the miracle of hope to break into their lives. Unfortunately for them the reality of unemployment looms large and we’ll ask them how they find hope in these very hard times.

On Good Friday I’ll bring you a 2 hour celebration of all that I love in country music. Starting with some of the key records that made me first love country, I’ll try to share with you my love of the records which still make me stop the car, sit down or inflict Hank, Patsy or Carrie on my family. I hope you’ll love some and I’m sure you’ll tell me what I’ve missed out. Either way it will be a fun ride. Here’s where I bought a whole pile of them….

"It's Jim we're talking about......"

It’s our good pal Karen Miller I blame and thank. I worked with Karen for one show only on Brand New Country and I heard her talk about Jim Lauderdale. Once you hear a name it’s funny how it comes back again and again.

I remember talking to a music publisher once who looked after Buddy Miller. It’s funny, he said, if people want to work with Buddy and he’s not available then they usually end up with Jim. But the opposite is also true, he smiled, the ones that can’t get Jim, get Buddy.

On Friday we will all get Jim and you’ll get the reason why he’s central to so much that goes on in country music. Let me start with a few facts: Jim has made 20 albums, has worked with legend Ralph Stanley, toured as part of Elvis Costello’s band, presents a weekly radio show on WSM in Nashville, hosts the Annual Americana Awards and has written hit songs for Patty Loveless and George Strait. Is that enough?

However over and above all of that he is one of the nicest people you can hope to meet. He came in to see us a few months back, performed a brilliant session and talked extensively about everything he’s been doing recently and gave us a fair idea of what he might be up to in the future. I can’t demand your Friday night, but if you have the ability to put your feet up near a radio I promise you won’t regret it.

The good Ray...You'll love him!

There are some lovely new things coming out and we’ll want to play some of those. I’ve loved some of the new Ray Wylie Hubbard album, The Deep Dark Woods and new things whistled (amongst other things) by Andrew Bird. Oh yes….and Laura Marling too. It’s going to be one of those good nights, I can tell. It all begins at five past eight on Friday evening…BBC Radio Scotland. Don’t miss a second of it.

On Sunday…

I’ll spend a lot of the first hour with Professor Louise Richardson, terrorism expert and now the first woman Principal and Vice-Chancellor at St Andrews University.

If that’s not enough we’ll talk about Tweeting Clerics, catch up on the Edinburgh Science Festival’s upcoming lecture on Trusting in God or Science.

We’ll also spend some time thinking about how charities use celebrities. As someone who’s just returned from Brazil with Christian Aid I can probably give an insiders view.

There’s music of course….. The Melodeons, Big Star, Doris Day and Anais Mitchell. Oh yes.

It all starts at five past seven Sunday Morning on BBC Radio Scotland. Do join us if you can.

What did you do this week? I spent most of mine locked in a very nice recording studio making music….I intend to carry this on with a short stop to play some country music on the airwaves on Friday. A lot of what I saw looked a bit like this:

However, on my back and forth to work I also got a chance to listen to some wonderful things including new music from The Pines, Andrew Bird, Norah Jones and a wonderful clash of Dr John working with Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys. I bought a compilation by this man…..

I managed some time on Tuesday to catch up with these folk….

And I inflicted on anyone that came within earshot my dear love of the current single by this band….

Now if you’re struggling to put a name to any of the above artists then you are definitely in need of Friday’s show where I will help match visuals to music.How that all fits into Friday’s stew is completely up to Richard Murdoch but I can tell you that we spent a few pleasant hours with Lindi Ortega a few weeks back.

She came into the BBC in Glasgow, cut a few live songs and I sat down for a long chat to find out more about what has brought her music to us. I think there will be much to enjoy for y’all come Friday night. It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.

On Sunday..

I’ll be talking to Stephen Armstrong about this book and what it tells us of where we live. I’ll warn you now, Stephen’s country seems to be a slightly different one than the place George Osborne was describing on my radio this morning.

I’ll spend a lot of the first hour with the remarkable Mary Lappin. Mary is a former primary school teacher who now lectures at Glasgow University – she is responsible for bringing educational programme, ‘Seasons For Growth’ from Australia to Scotland. Mary is enthusiastic to talk with and is passionate about her work – part of this passion comes from “living her faith everyday”.

We’ll talk to Syrian people exiled in Scotland about how they view events in their home land and as always we’ll play great music. More from Norah Jones…why wouldn’t you…..Arrested Development, Sam Cooke, Sean O’Leary and Tom Waits.  All from five past seven on Sunday morning. Join me if you can.

God gave me you for the ups and downs, God gave me you for the days I’m down, and when I think I’ve lost my way there are no words left to say, it’s true…..God Gave Me You.

Now how comforting was that to Asma Assad as she listened to the song her murderous husband sent her recently via i tunes? Poor old Blake Shelton 

(for it was his recording of God Gave Me You) – can’t imagine he’d ever have imagined his song would be bought by a Syrian dictator, but it was. It’s one of the odd things of the modern world. Music gets everywhere.

David Pratt (the gifted Sunday Herald Foreign Editor) told me a story a while back about sheltering from blasts in the back of beyond one day beneath a video screen that was playing our Twist and Shout video.

There’s no control over these things of course. We’ve all been somewhere abroad and heard the unlikeliest songs in the weirdest of places. The internet has helped but it all started as soon as someone cut a record and people started shipping them out. The story goes that Northern Soul started around the north west of England as old deleted soul records were used as ships ballast on boats coming in to Liverpool docks.

That music gets out – there can be no question, and this week on Another Country we celebrate the fact that musicians all listen to each other too. We’ll have a few Punch Brothers in conversation talking about their brilliant new album. They’ll describe how they ‘bluegrass’ an electronic Radiohead song and Chris Thile will describe how a nearly overlooked riff became the key to their brilliant opening song “Movement and Location” from “Who’s Feeling Young Now.” You’ll hear the brothers live from their concert at Glasgow’s ABC in January and I’m sure you’ll agree they have made one of the albums of 2012 that will be hard to beat.

We’ll also have lots of wonderful new things for you… from The Alabama Shakes, Craig (Hold Steady) Finn (who’s in town Saturday)
My Darling Clementine, Grizzly Bear and from that band the first solo offering from Daniel Rossen – which is great. Dean Owens new album comes out this week too so we’ll be playing an appropriate song for this time of year. Oh, and did I mention Marty Robbins? Mr Murdoch will have looked out some significant treasures from the BBC archive too because, as we never forget, we love country music.

It all starts at five past eight on Friday evening on BBC Radio Scotland. Do join us…

On Sunday……

This week I’ll be talking to academic Milja Radovic about her life in the former Yugoslavia during the war of the early 1990’s, and the challenge of being a woman studying theology in a very orthodox climate. Now based in Scotland she talks about her involvement in a project to prevent the trafficking of women from her former homeland.

With Mitt Romney still leading the Republican nomination campaign it’s time to test your knowledge of the Mormon faith. Gary King Griffiths, President of the Church of Latter Day Saints Scotland Ireland Mission and Sister Holly Parks join us to debunk some of the myths surrounding the Mormons.

Funerals are very personal affairs but how do you conduct a dignified service for someone with no family or friends to claim them? The Reverend Alex McAspurren has increasingly performed such services in recent years. He joins us to reveal some of the challenges faced by those who carry out council funerals.

In his book, ‘Everyday Enlightenment’, one of the world’s most influential Buddhists, His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, offers unique guidance for spiritual fulfilment in our busy Western lives. As well as leading “eco-journeys” pilgrimages he’s a strong advocate of women’s rights; we’ll hear about his association with the nuns who practice daily Kung Fu.

It’s currently Make a Will fortnight when we’re encouraged to draw up a legal document for the benefit of those we leave behind. But what if you want to leave a legacy that’s more than just your worldly possessions? We hear about the ancient Jewish tradition ofethical wills and the passing on of personal wisdom.

And of course I will play you some great music…listen out for Prince, William De Vaughan, The Beach Boys and Alison Krauss as we get Mothers’ Day of to a gentle, happy start. All from Seven on Sunday morning, BBC Radio Scotland.

This Friday on Another Country we get to do something which makes everything worthwhile. Sometimes there are days when you chase your tail around, and sometimes there are times when you really wish you’d be born in another time or another place. But this Friday I will drive to the studio knowing that my guest for the evening – and playing live in the studio with her Blue Moon Orchestra – will be Nanci Griffith.

So let’s spin back a few years. My pal Phil was talking about a mutual friend. He had so many good things to say about this friend then he stpped up to offer his highest praise, “Apart from all that,” he said, ‘had it not been for John, I’d never have heard Nanci Griffith.” Was that the reason I fell in love with nanci’s music? I don’t remember. But I do recall the day when I went in to the old Listen in Byres Road and I bought every album I could find by Nanci. From memory I came home with 5 or 6 and just played them all. I loved them all. I loved the songs, her voice and I loved the fact that it opned me up to a whole new world of other writers and performers. if this was country music, then bring it on.

As it happened, one thing led to another and, although I never lost any admiration for Nanci, I didn’t keep up with every release. It wasn’t till many years later that I went to Nashville and my good friend Edwina Hayes recommended me to Nanci that I would meet her and get a chance to tell her how much her music had meant to me. I told my old pal Craig this one night and mentioned that Nanci was coming over soon to do a show. “What’s she like live?,” I asked. “The best,” he said. “Her whole life lies in front of you and that’s as good as it gets.” I liked the sound of that.

I’ve witnessed it then a few times and I know it is true and on Friday night in the second half of Another Country Nanci will play songs from her new album ‘Intersection.’ We’ve been playing it already and we like it very much. ‘Hell, No,’ she sings ‘I’m not all right.

Hell, yeah!!

On Sunday…

I talk to writer, broadcaster and environmental champion, Martin Palmer, about his quest to rediscover our spirituality and respect for nature.

One year on from the tsunami which devastated Japan, we hear personal stories of how people are coping spiritually as well as practically from Buddhist Lecturer, Dr Hiroko Kawanami.

In his intensely revealing memoir, “Leaving Alexandra”, former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, tries to make sense of his struggle with God and the Church.

Continuing her series of reports on places of spiritual significance, Art Historian Anne Ellis is struck by the power of ancient pagan site, Dunino Den in Fife.

Plus – car tyres, straw bales and beer cans… Reverend Christopher Rowe of Colston Parish Church reveals ambitions “green” plans for the construction of their new church from recycled rubbish.

Oh and I have some fab music for you too……Join me if you can on Sunday morning from 7 on BBC Radio Scotland.