I’m writing this from my desk at my home studio window. It’s all change here round here. For years we’ve let the trees round our house grow until realising recently that ‘something needs to be done.’ Old Conifers planted well before our arrival here 19 years ago have now come so close to the house and grown so high that my working environment began to feel a little too like a walk in the woods. Nice for occasional atmosphere but my room was freezing even in that July heatwave. So the tree surgeons are in and clearing things out and this morning my view includes parts of Glasgow I didn’t know were there.

As I listened to a little WSM (Nashville’s Legend) online this morning they were talking about a cool wind coming down from the Great Lakes and giving a sense of ‘early fall.’ The trees here have certainly had that. As Scottish children return to school this week at the ‘end of the summer’ then it seems a good time to be coming back to Another Country and this blog. I hope you’ve had a great time enjoying this amazing summer. I’m old enough to realise this is not how things often are so it’s good to celebrate the outdoors as long as we can. I’m hugely indebted to Roddy Hart for keeping things alive on Fridays for a few weeks there and I hear Southern Fried was a real blast (albeit a warm one) for everyone who managed to get there.

Like the onward march of the seasons new music keeps coming and I’m delighted to flag up some significant returns of some of our favourite artists. Over the next few weeks we’ll have new albums from Devon Sproule, Jason Isbell, Bob Dylan and Ry Cooder  Glen Campbell may not be performing live but there are new recordings available.

I went to Fife this week. I went to see one of my oldest friends be inducted as a Church of Scotland minister in the beautiful old church of St Monans. It’s the nearest church to the sea in Scotland – apparently – and as if to emphasise the point it has two miniature vessels suspended above the pews to remind everyone of the link. After that I went further along the coast to visit some of my family holidaying in Crail. It was one of the loveliest evenings I have spent in a long time. I nosed my way along the coast – still half remembering directions from the days I used to deliver things for my dad. My summer job was driving his van and making sure vital supplies were there for the newsagents of Angus, Fife and Perth. The parcels were full of fishing nets, balls and whatever the craze was that year. Hula hoops…frisbees? There were always plenty of buckets and spades as, in that part of Scotland, you can still have lots of fun on a beach on a cold day.

For the last few years Loudon Wainwright III has arranged his visits to Scotland without consulting me. Now I’m not a big one for turning up to most gigs – I’m quoted on wanting to see David Bowie (who I like very much) play in my local park if there was something good on the telly. I would, however, make an exception for Loudon as he is very good indeed. The trouble is each time he’s been anywhere near me I’ve been on air or doing a gig myself.The last time I saw Loudon was 15 or so years ago in Edinburgh and it was a great night. What I love about the Loudon show is that there’s no need to have done any homework before you go. Often – especially with artists of a certain vintage and heritage – you feel a need to skim a couple of albums to remind you why you bought/asked for/bid-a-fortune-for-on-ebay the tickets in the first place. Maybe we should all be breathalised before we submit credit cards. (Towards the end of Neil Young’s show last week I was wondering why I’d made such a heart stopping effort to get there at all when I’d forsaken some excellent home baking at the school parents night…but that’s another story)

On Friday I am going to present a pretty special two hours in the company of Loudon, his daughters Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright-Roche and occasional musical interludes from his son Rufus Wainwright and Martha and Rufus’s late mother Kate McGarrigle. It’s not an overstatement to suggest – as I will on Friday – that, outside the Carter-Cashes, this is the most significant musical family in folk/roots music over the last forty years. At the start of it all and still right in the middle of things too is the formidable Loudon. I first met him when he hosted a TV show years ago called Loudon and Co. Deacon Blue played that show and I asked Loudon about a song he’d performed. He said he’d send me the album and, as good as his word, the album popped through the postbox a few days later. It’s called History and it’s still one of my favourites of his or anyone else’s output.

What makes Loudon such a special artist is his candid story-telling about himself, his friends and – most of all – the other members of his family. Sometimes they respond. We’ll hear two particular responses from Martha and Rufus. We’ll also hear them sing together – Loudon and Lucy sang a beautiful duet for us – and we’ll hear why music has been the glue that has kept them all together – even when they’re falling apart. As Loudon sort of says, ’We’re the same as every other family and that’s why people dig the songs.’ I think that’s dead right.

When we last carried an interview with Patty Griffin I had stolen time from her backstage at The Band of Joy gig in Edinburgh, To get things started we’d knocked on her dressing room door. I felt slight trepidation at this point as I’d already encountered Robert Plant and he’d rightly wondered what on earth we were all doing there. My nerves, however, were offset by the intrigue of seeing her put down her guitar to come to the interview up the stair. What was she doing in there? (to misquote Tom) Was she writing new songs... would there be an album...was anyone else involved?

The answers didn’t come immediately but a few weeks ago I found out everything. Patty Griffin and Robert Plant came in to Studio 1 at AC central to record a session and Patty talked extensively about that writing process, her collaborators and clear up if she was really writing songs in that dressing room. It was a truly one-off AC experience made slightly, and I choose this word carefully, surreal by the great presence of Robert. He was such fun; chatted to everyone about music, Scotland, being famous…everything really. It was also clear that he loved being involved and bringing a little more attention to what Patty Griffin was doing. As you well know – and I’ll reiterate it here again – I think Patty is my favourite singer. She could sing anything and proved how versatile she was on Downtown Church a couple of years back, but on this new record she’s on sparkling form writing, playing and singing her own songs. It’s a very moving story of loss too as she will explain when she tells us the story of her late father who didn’t say very much (he had been a trappist monk at one point) but did say the words, ‘Don’t Let Me Die In Florida.’ It’s a great session with some brilliant insights from Patty so don’t miss it.

I remember the time well. It was 1975 and I was just finished 5th year at school. I was obsessed by music and through a friend my current obsession focussed around the characters of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In an attempt to stay ahead of that year’s game I bought the new Neil Young album. I’d heard Harvest and bits of the others but I wanted to know what was going on now. I bought ‘Tonight’s The Night.’ To thousands of fans this was the antithesis of everything they wanted to hear in a Neil Young album. They’d been waiting for Harvest 2…and frankly, this was not what was wanted. Stoned, slurred, slow, country...yes (but not that kind) it stretched the fans. My pal Pete had given up on the last but one – Time Fades Away and had certainly not wasted any spare change on On The Beach. He gave me Time Fades Away and I’m grateful to this day as it’s still not available on digital or CD.

So, because I came in where I did, and wanted to love it all – I now count those mid seventies ‘difficult’ albums as some of my favourites. It took me till many years later to do the same with the eighties ones – but hey everyone has got to find their own way through the Neil humps. What’s certain is that when you do you’ll get a wee reward at the end. He’s coming to Glasgow next week. It’s a disaster for me. Having said NO to a couple of things so I could be there my son’s school – philistines all of them – have called a parents night. I am determined that the business will conclude in time for me to catch the final hour or so.

It will be great to see him again. I’m not a big one for seeing people live millions of times. I’d rather see a variety of artists. I’ve seen Neil twice – once with Crazy Horse at The old Apollo and once with Booker T and the MGs at the SECC. They were both sublime experiences – the first in 1976 changed my life – but that’s another story.

I once had an email exchange of views with someone who said he wasn’t going to buy my music because he said I supported terrorists. In actual fact he was referring to the fact that I was doing a benefit gig for Medical Aid to Palestine. (I know…but sometimes the public out there can be pretty ill informed.) It came up again recently when I was upbraided online for doing a free gig at a prison. How they thought the prisoners should pay for it was beyond me…

I like to know what I think, I like to think I half know what might be in the news and like everyone else I’m constantly surprised that I still get shocked by things in the news. I guess we’re all reeling from these terrible images from Woolwich and, having just returned from the supermarket and seen the spread of newspapers, I’m perhaps wishing I knew less. The trouble is we often can’t look away, and for some people there was no choice.

Sitting listening to the news over breakfast, I did what I often do in these situations; I turned down the news and put on Bruce. In particular it was Wreck On The Highway – but it could have been so many songs. It’s a gut response with me. I put on music to write this and suddenly the world seemed to make more sense. The songs were these….I Thought I Was A Child – Jackson Browne, Movin On – Sweet Honey In The Rock and Tomorrow Is A Long Time (by Bob) and sung by Nickel Creek. It helped. When I reached Alan Jackson’s Blessed Assurance I knew I was ready to step outside again. I’m sorry if that’s facile – but that’s what music does. Other times it energises you; today it consoled. What do you reach for?

On Friday we gather round a radio on the back of a news bulletin that might bring us more bad news…who will know? Inevitable we need to get on with our lives. Someone posted a lovely share about doing the ironing on Friday nights while listening…I liked that. If we can come into your life and make sense of one or two things by surprising you with great music then Mr Murdoch and I and the good Kirsten will believe we have achieved all we set out to do.

This Friday we’re delighted to welcome Eugene Twist and the band to  Studio One. It’s a first visit by Eugene since his album came out last year and he’s promising us new songs too. We’ll find out all about him, his recordings and the kind of country he digs himself in the second half of the show.

Before that…. The Dixie Chicks, Son Volt, Jimmie Rodgers and finally Aoife O’Donovan’s album pokes its head out of the box.

... A Month of Great, Scottish Musicians and Bands who we revere and consider as great friends of Another Country.

It’s going to be big, noisy and very exciting and it all starts this Friday with Woodenbox.  Many of you will remember their session from a couple of years back and since then they’ve managed to lose a ‘fistful of fivers’ and keep things simple with a one word monikor. They’ve also given birth to a fab new album, tracks from which they will play this Friday as well as an interesting cover version which they’ve rustled up for us.

…I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings. (Robert Louis Stevenson – a fine writer and Scotsman to boot)

Maybe it’s just me but I sometimes wonder if music doesn’t just drive you mad. I was having a wee nap recently and dozed off to an iPod shuffle that kept throwing up gems. I wanted to smile beatifically – Bilko style – but kept waking myself up to check what the track was.
It’s the same in the pictures. I was fairly disappointed at my two cinema adventures last week but always curious to watch the credits so I could check out who sang what. It’s a curse I tell you…ask my wife.

On a lovely drive back through the hills of Galloway I returned to some old playlists; in particular the songs of two years ago we loved on the AC. The annoying thing was hearing old friends but forgetting the artists name and the titles of the records. (Nathaniel Rateliff and Gregory Alan Isakov were two highlights!)The memory is the music I guess. It’s what we all want to happen when we hear music…we want to be taken somewhere. In so many cases – and often for me in my teens and early adulthood – I wanted to be somewhere else. I wanted to be in the place I heard that song taking place or I wanted to be the guy singing the song or often I wanted to imagine people waiting to hear what song I’d play next – a radio audience. I wrote a song I found recently about that very wish. It’s called Frank The Graveyard Man – about someone who loves being on the radio late at night and mixing it up a bit. His songs choices  are so poignant that the listener can’t help but imagine what the heck is going on in his private life. It reminded me of a lecturer I once enjoyed listening to. Was he really telling us about Anthony and Cleopatra or was he revealing his own marital failings and foibles? I dare say you might concoct a strange picture if you tried this with the AC – so I’m bound to advise you against it. Nevertheless music sparks the imagination and none of us is immune to the tricks it can play. It changes the colour of our sky and makes the coldest and harshest of truths a little more bearable – and for that we are all grateful.

On Friday we collectively imagined the worlds of Aoife O’Donovan, Steve Earle, Jim Jones, Ry Cooder and Beth Orton. We will inevitably remembered again why we love country music and to that end we will have a star witness:

Caitlin Rose is that rarest of AC visitors – the third time returnee. Since she first charmed us with the Dead Flowers EP a couple of years back she has been a very busy young woman. Steeped in the ways and lore of Music Row she has, wisely in my opinion, decided not to fall to heavily under the spell of the charms of these fabled streets. She has instead set her own course, written her own songs and she is therefore a more rounded and original artist for all of that. She came in with some of her touring ensemble and cut some songs from her excellent new album, The Stand In. She also covered a brilliant song I first heard performed by Linda Ronstadt.

Picture the scene: You are one half of a struggling alt folk act then you fiddle with your line up a little – strategically drafting in a bowed-crotale player – and the next album you make just takes off. Critics love it, audiences adore it and fellow musicians want in on the act. Songs are covered by legends…Emmylou Harris and Tom Jones and others invite you to sing on their projects. Life is, as Larry David would say, pretty pretty good.

If there had been no Emmylou Harris my record collection and, I dare say, yours would look rather different. The music we say we enjoy might also be considerably different and I’m guessing we would perhaps have that slightly compensated by some other artists we ought to know better. However if there was no Emmylou (God forbid) my country music knowledge would be greatly diminished.

Would we all know so much about Gram Parsons and The Burritos? Almost certainly not. It was Emmylou’s mission statement in those early albums to Evangelise the world about Gram and his music. But let’s look through those early records to see what else I learned: The first person we’d have taken a long time to find was Rodney Crowell.

It was there on the first cut of Elite Hotel, Amarillo, a co-write with Rodney and if that wasn’t proof enough we’d surely have had to stop in our tracks when we got to Till I Gain Control Again. It wasn’t till years later I finally The Great Buck Owens.

When I realised Buck we was the guy who’d written, Together Again it all fitted into place. Later on I’d hear Emmylou singing ‘When I Stop Dreaming’ and it would be years later before I realised the significance of the Louvin Brothers. And of course none of us who listened to these early albums will ever forget the first time we say that very unusual form of proper nouns, Townes Van Zandt. It was Emmylou with Poncho and Lefty who single handedly drew the spotlight to the career of Townes.

Not long after this Emmylou and Rodney would cease to be band members. Rodney (the young prodigy) would leave the Hot Band and go on to make some amazing records of his own. He’d also start to have his songs cut by some of the top country singers of all time. In due time he’d also marry into the Carter Cash family and by extension enjoy his own gentle coronation and passage into the Palaces of Country Royalty. Emmylou would carry on making music with… everyone for the next 35 years or so. She’d become the duetist with Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler and she’d sing with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton as well as making ground breaking records with Daniel Lanois. I could go on…

I have a friend who quotes another fellow interrupting himself half way through an anecdote, ‘I’ll have to stop, I’m boring myself.’ I began to feel the same way this week. I’ve talked about music too much and I just want to get down to playing some. So we’ll do that and, for those of you who missed it on Radio 2, we’ll play that entire Mavericks encounter out as well as some tracks from the brilliant reunion show they put on last week at Celtic Connections.

Mavericks and Ricky Ross

John Fullbright

I’m very fond of Loudon Wainwright III. One time he sang, ‘Suddenly it’s Christmas, right after about halloween. Forget about Thanksgiving it’s just a buffet in between.’  And you know what he means. No sooner have you notice the dark nights coming in than you see the wee guys from the council up on cherry pickers hanging neon decorations from the lamp posts. I’ve always tried to run the ‘let’s do it every two years’ flag up the pole…but it’s never been saluted. Fair enough too. When we were kids we wanted it every three months. But there is a dark overhang in January.

In Glasgow they did something about that 20 years ago and they liked the atmosphere so much that they’ve kept it going every year since. Celtic Connections is in its 20th year and it’s bigger, louder but just as interesting and rewarding as ever.

It’s great news for us at The AC. We stock-pile interviews as the artists travel through town and get as many sessions and conversations as we can so we can play them out throughout the next few months. There’s lots of familiar AC artists in too: The Mavericks, Sara Watkins, Ben Knox Miller, JD McPherson and Old Crow Medicine Show will all be appearing over the next 18 days or so. We’ll have our own floor show next week when we will be welcoming some great guests.

This week we will play music by musicians appearing at the festival including John Fullbright (who you will be hearing much more about soon), those above mentioned Mavericks, Cowboy Junkies oh and so much more. However over and above that there is a reason to gather round the wireless on Friday which supercedes all I have already said. On Friday our guest will be the man we’ve been trying to chase down for the last three years.

I’m trying not to succumb to my life-long desire to start a list. I used to make lists of everything...albums, gigs, songs, titles, sets  (still do a bit of that), running orders….oh there’s a million bits of useless paper out there somewhere. I do realise it’s a bloke thing and I have to confess my stomach churns now to see these macho music journals dragging out their end of year lists again. Despite our antipathy it seems we men are determined to inflict our litanies on everyone.

So in an attempt to sum up the year we have avoided The List. There is no best song/album/gig/producer and no top ten. Indeed there is virtually no science whatsoever but rather a reflection of some of the things which we loved playing the first time and are still enjoying now.

I’ve said it before but one of the things that I find baffling is people’s unwillingness to accept that there are always great new musical things coming along worth celebrating. This year we’ve really enjoyed the return of some favourite artists and discovered a whole lot more. We’ve been in the studio with many of them and marvelled at their musicality and their sheer creative energy. We have rejoiced in the great collaborations may have shared with us – some of them unexpected- and others fulfilling what many of us have desired for a long time. So to all of these artists we say a huge thanks.