Sometimes I think my own musical career – however shambolically it may be hurtling down the line as the days fly past – has happened in reverse.  Whilst I was always drawn to the work of singer/songwriters like a fervent moth might be to a particularly alluring flame, I had grown up convinced that such a destination was the preserve of the older gentleman.  I was content with the fact that I would get to this more serious of plateaus eventually, once my youthful and exuberant face-down-in-a-toilet-bowl-phase as the frontman of a blistering rock n’ roll band was well and truly over.  In short, I didn’t want to be a solo artist quite so early.

I tried my hardest to form a band at school, but for some reason my fellow pupils saw better than to join musical forces with a nervous young man who had opted to learn two seemingly incompatible instruments in the classical guitar and saxophone (this was before Bon Iver made the honk of a conical-bore woodwind contraption cool, kids).  Undaunted I arrived at University brimming with optimism, hopeful that I might meet the Lennon to my (James) McCartney, only to discover a bunch of law students who thought “Big Star” was something that required a telescope rather than a pair of headphones.  It wasn’t until my friend told me of an advert pinned to the notice board of the Queen Margaret Union seeking a guitarist (“Must like Teenage Fanclub and Pink Floyd” it read) that my faith in humanity was restored.  I auditioned and subsequently joined this merry band of players from the North of Scotland: we wrote songs and gigged; got offered a record deal and got hastily dropped; and then suffered the horrendously tragic death of one of our members (a story for another time, perhaps).

I was naturally scarred by the whole experience.  But after a significant amount of time away the bug returned and I decided to push on by myself, boat against the current.  I took on a residency in a local bar and began to enjoy the freedom that writing and performing alone afforded me.  No sniping! No creative differences! No logistical nightmares booking rehearsals!  Just me, myself and I, and I loved it.  I released three records, toured mostly solo acoustic in some far off corners of the globe and answered to no one.  In my head, I got to be Dylan, or John Prine, or Jackson Browne.  But the days grew long, dear listener, and I grew weary.  Far from the idyllic existence of my favourite troubadours, my reality soon became a series of service station stops in a beat up old Mazda with only Terry Wogan for company.  And so I began to hanker after the companionship and bon moments that being in a band could bring.  After all, what use is a bad review if you don’t have somebody to hold the newspaper while you dropkick it?  And so, I’m happy to report, at the time of writing I currently belong to a band of 7 members with a new record due out imminently.

The reason I’ve been thinking about all of this is because Justin Currie is our Record of Note on the show this week with the beautiful Lower Reaches.  It’s another articulately beguiling record, and a possible fitting end to what could be a pretty special trilogy of solo albums if rumours are to be believed that a reunion is on the cards for the band he made his name with: Del Amitri.  Y’see, he earned his corn, enjoying great critical and commercial success (with the odd testing period too, of course) with his band before he tried out a career as a solo musician.  And in some ways solo records are so much more fascinating when you know the history of what went before.  Think the triumphs: Peter Gabriel after Genesis, Paul Buchanan after The Blue Nile, Ozzy after Black Sabbath. And then the disasters: step forward, Mr Mick Jagger.  Whatever their respective merits, they allow you to put into context the life and the work of the writer with the added knowledge that he or she might just be breaking free from the confines of band living.  Good or bad, it’s always interesting.

When I started on the Roddy Hart Show in April of 2012 as a mere radio wildling, I was nervous about what the future might hold.  Having a radio show is an immense honour and privilege – beaming musical offerings into the homes of the canniest of individuals (i.e. you, my dear Radio Scotland devotee) quite the thrill – and when firing on all cylinders, it’s a hell of a lot of fun too.  But with great (FM, MW online and on digital) power comes great responsibility, and I was all too aware that the show shouldn’t purely reflect my own personal tastes and preferences.  How would it develop as the Thursdays galloped by?  Working as a team – producer, presenter and listener – my hope was simply that we would craft a show about nothing more than great songs and great songwriters.  From any geographical location, from any genre of music.  But however the show might change and adapt as it spread its wings, I knew one immutable truth: Californian music had to written through it like a stick of rock. 

And so it was with some trepidation that I first sat in a meeting with the show’s producers and nervously offered up a number of suggestions for features and tracks.  Dylan would be there, yes; Sam Cooke, sure; no shying away from the classics; a definite devotion to all that was new and good in the Scottish music scene (from LAU to Frightened Rabbit and beyond); great cover versions and live performances; English folk (The Staves, Laura Marling); exotic offerings (Agnes Obel, Jonas Alaska) and so much more.  In fact, wherever our nose would take us on the hunt for sublime music we would follow.  We hussled and tussled over the minutiae, but it was clear we were on the same page.  And then I offered up my thoughts on my love for Californian music, explaining just why it had been so important to my own life and career.  I talked passionately about attending my first Jackson Browne concert as a 16 year old; about reading the lyrics for Joni Mitchell’s quite devastating “A Case of You” – after years of being subjected to terribly lazy chart music – with something approaching awe; about hearing Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for the first time and realising just how important (and difficult) the art of harmony singing was.  In short, I wanted them to know my love was a deal breaker.

Turns out I needn’t have worried.  My passion for The Golden State and all its musical inhabitants was reciprocated with no questions asked, my producers regaling me with tales of the legends of Laurel Canyon as if they were mythical creatures.  I knew the show was in safe hands.  Y’see, music at its best is all about escapism, and in the Californian hills and hangouts, valleys and venues I had found my dreamland.  To this day the mystery and intrigue remains, so far removed from my own existence that to try and put a finger on its heavenly allure would be almost impossible.  And I know better than to question its otherworldliness.

So this week on the show, we have something of a mini Californian special.  Record of Note comes from Dawes, who – along with Jonathan Wilson and Father John Misty – are heading the Laurel Canyon revival, our Undercover Writer is the aforementioned Ms Mitchell, and we are Live on Arrival with a rare performance from LA’s Grant Lee Buffalo.  We will of course have the usual new and good from all corners of the musical globe too, but we’re in a Californian state of mind, so expect some laid back goings on.  The place to be is BBC Radio Scotland this Thursday night at 10.05pm, dude.

Footnote: talking of other musical worlds, I’ll be in the chair for the final time this Friday night on Ricky Ross’ Another Country.  It’s been great fun, and I intend to go out with a hiccup or two.  Our theme is great country drinking songs, so expect a lock in of quite dizzying proportions (I’ll be on the water, mind you).  That’s all kicking off at 8.05pm this Friday night.

“A three legged dog is still a dog,” said Michael Stipe, with some panache, after the departure of founding R.E.M. member (and drummer) Bill Berry in 1997.  At the time of Berry’s unexpected retreat from the heady world of show business, the quartet – completed by guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills – were at the top of their game. Having enjoyed years of critical success – building from relatively humble beginnings as a college rock band straight out of Athens, Georgia – they were finally fulfilling the commercial promise that almost no one (other than themselves perhaps) had predicted, becoming an all-conquering globe-trotting stadium-filling outfit of quite gargantuan proportions.  Their achievement as musicians and songwriters was all the more remarkable too, given the fact they had rarely pandered to the masses even as their big musical spaceship – powered by the albums “Out of Time” and “Automatic For The People” – soared majestically into the stratosphere.

At the risk of sounding like a broken blog, I love Jackson Browne. 

It was 1996, and I was in my final year at school.  My own musical ambitions as a songwriter were practically embryonic; content as I was to be “that guy” at the party who could play the songs my own generation was listening to.  I’d studied classical guitar for four years – primarily so I could one day learn to play Cavatina, the theme tune from the movie “The Deerhunter” (duly scaled and conquered) – and eventually graduated to modern pop music, determined to impress a girl I fancied who only had eyes for Damon Albarn.

Always make time for music. When you’re young – and I mean in your teens or early twenties (I confess those days are beyond even me now) – the road seems endless: a constant stretch of musical landmarks laid out before you, in the buildings and on the side streets, down the main pathways and off the beaten track, all ripe for discovery. Hours and days are lost to adventure. For me, it feels like whole weeks and infinite summers were spent as a young man in the company of travelling companions like Dylan, Teenage Fanclub, Wilco, and Springsteen. When you get older, however, things start to get in the way; the road gets busier. There’s more traffic. You lose sight of what it is to be curious about what might exist around you, and instead start to think about the horizon ahead. To quote Tom Waits’ bartender Benny in Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish, “time is a very peculiar item.”

I haven’t had much time to listen to music over the last few weeks, and it’s been getting to me. It’s peculiar too, because although life can be understandably hectic for all of us, my life revolves around music and all its heavenly pursuits. I’m lucky enough to have my Thursday night radio show for BBC Radio Scotland, and in my other job I’m in a band, and so we are constantly rehearsing and gigging. But the past few weeks have been pretty chaotic for a number of reasons, and although I have been keeping up to date with all the new music filtering in to the radio show (such is my sworn oath and duty to you, my dear listener), I haven’t had a chance to pause and catch my breath. It made me wonder: sure, I’ve heard music of late, but have I really been listening? Music is all around us after all, and I suppose sometimes this can be the problem: so bombarded are we by TV shows, adverts, and Internet postings, that what we hear can become a sort of white noise. It’s no damn good for your wellbeing if you don’t take the time to stop and listen.

This general malaise was cured recently, and in stunning fashion, by the songwriter Alela Diane and her new record “About Farewell”. The album was sent to me last week, and although I had a cursory listen (and indeed played a track on last week’s show), I got distracted by other matters and didn’t have time to make it through the whole thing. More fool me. This week whilst working on bits and pieces – including prep for some delightful depping on Ricky Ross’ Another Country over the next four Fridays – I put the album on, and it stopped me in my tracks. Delicate, refined, articulate, sparse, raw and emotive, it is an album that deserves your full attention.

So on the show this week, Alela Diane is my Record Of Note, and we’ll be talking the great break up albums and tracks of all time. Add to that Ray Charles as our Undercover Writer and some Live on Arrival from the Beach Boys

What’s in a name? There can exist a natural predilection for forming an opinion on a band (or solo artist hiding behind a particular nom de plume) before clapping ears on what matters most: the music. First impressions count after all, but we also know that we mustn’t judge a book by its cover.  I always remember seeing the name "Radiohead" in print before hearing a single note, and wondering just what the head of a radio might look like, or why any right thinking band would want to be named after one. Then of course I heard second album The Bends, swiftly followed by a witnessing of the hypnotic video for “Fake Plastic Trees” on Top of The Pops, and I was hooked – any issues I might have had about the name disappearing almost instantly. Similarly, “The War On Drugs” might suggest a House of Commons Select Committee – militant MPs doggedly debating the merits of anti-drug legislation – but is in fact a band led by Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile specialising in a beautifully realised kind of ambient rock and roll. Lucid, laconic and liberally lovely, it certainly doesn’t push any right wing agenda.  

Picking band names is a horrible business. My very first band was the dubiously monikered “The Initials” (although in my defence I was 11 years old, so back off right?), the names hurtling steadily downhill from there.  Next came “Starsky” (why we didn’t opt for “Hutch” remains a mystery to this day), then “Red Star Belgrade” (“It’s an obscure Serbian football team, it’ll be cool” insisted a fellow band member), until finally “The Dendrons” – a truly terrible play on the name of a particular woody plant being all you need to know before swallowing your own fist in embarrassment – marked the final nail in the coffin for that particular band incarnation. It’s no wonder I decided to go solo for a number of years, preferring to recite my own Sunday name whenever anyone asked in the pub, “what’s your band called?”. In fact only recently did I find myself mired in the painful business of pinging potential band names back and forth with my merry band of players, finally settling on the nomenclature Australian firefighters give to a modest blaze responsible for starting a bush fire: The Lonesome Fire. Never mind whatever other connotations it might have, something with humble beginnings which grows to be massively fierce was a strong enough metaphor for us.  

Love or hate the name, and leaving etymological discussions for another time, the point is you don’t truly know what the band is like until you listen to the songs. Some are simple ( “The Band”, “Television”, “Elbow”, “Suede”, “Pulp” ) and some excruciatingly ornate ( “Dananananakroyd” , “Dogs Die In Hot Cars”, “…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead” ), but a quick scan of all of these names tells us that there is nothing unifying them stylistically. They are simply a banner helping us to identify them; they tell us little about the genre of music each act belongs to. It’s once you start investigating the music that your own prejudices are tested.

I’ve loved American music for as long as I can remember. Growing up in a household with a worthy record collection is more prized a memory with every passing year, enriching my life and career in a multitude of ways I could barely have recognised when I was a young man. But it could have been so different – had I not been blessed with parents who not only demonstrated good taste in their already voluminous assortment of vinyl and newly introduced CDs, but also actively sought out the new and the good from their local record store almost weekly, then perhaps I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog at all. Or perhaps I’d have been on a different musical path altogether, hanging with the headbangers or rapping with the rude boys. Fans of the show will know from the type of music we play each Thursday that fate had something else in mind, and so I was born into a house that – amongst some pretty diverse records from all over – seemed to favour music from the other side of the Atlantic.

I did rebel for a while during my formative years, every child must, and to my shame even showed signs of embarrassment at times. But I eventually came round to my parents’ way of thinking. My mum was a fan of Stax, Motown and Tamla records (especially Smokey, Stevie and Otis), whilst my dad opted for the more rustic of American performers: top of the list was Bob Dylan, closely followed by Neil Young, Tom Waits, and then the harmony-drenched sounds of bands like The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Sunday mornings were particularly redolent round our way – hearty breakfasts, scattered newspapers, and the exotic strains of some American troubadour or other drifiting through the rooms of my childhood home. It was this otherworldly-ness that grabbed my attention at first – so far from my own normal existence that it seemed almost a different planet – and so I found myself eager to find out more about the rag-tag bunch of musos who inhabited Laurel Canyon, California, or the man they called “The Boss” who frequented the boardwalks of Ashbury Park, New Jersey.

It was a magical voyage of discovery, criss crossing the American plains uncovering everything from Woody Guthrie to Warren Zevon, The Beach Boys to Big Star, Judee Sill to Jackson Browne and beyond. I found myself lost in music, as they sang of life, of love, of death, of chasing the American Dream over near mythical landscapes. The good ones had the knack of making almost any subject matter sound cool, given the luxury of framing their songs against the backdrop of a country so vast and impressive it could provide for an almost endless stream of invention and inspiration. And it continues to this day in the long line of American artists who continue to impress, from Arcade Fire to The National to Wilco and many more, all of whom carry the torch for a great nation of musical mavericks.

As Scotland’s favourite banana-booted Glasgow comedian once sang, “If it wasnae for your wellies, where would you be?” Well, if you happen to enjoy festival season, which starts in earnest this weekend at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, then you would be in trouble. Because as all denizens of these musical celebrations can attest, no matter how encouraging the weather forecast may be you would be well advised to leave blind optimism at home in favour of a steely eyed pragmatism that should be part of your very DNA if you happen to live north of the British map.

Yes, after a fallow year, Glastonbury is upon us once again. And besides the obvious, that means another few days of concentrated merry-making, singing and lighter waving, drink, love in confined spaces and arrests (a very microcosm of life itself!). And if the sun doesn’t shine then of course it means mud, too. In my days as a student, I spent a summer touring festivals to work behind the bars as a volunteer for a charity organisation dedicated to donating their takings to various social causes. It was certainly charitable of them to allow six University mates though the gates at Glasto, free to roam where we pleased after finishing our obligatory six-hour shifts each day. That year, 2000, I recall seeing Coldplay perform on the Other Stage (wide-eyed and about to release their first album, seemingly unaware of how huge they were about to become), Travis headlined, as did David Bowie (before his self-imposed exile), and The Chemical Brothers had me dancing to a type of music I haven’t moved to since.

I also remember being struck by the sheer enormity of the land; a city of revellers united in a sense of community no matter their background or musical persuasion, required to travel great lengths to move from stage to stage, field to field. Glastonbury has a certain magic to it that just cannot be denied, and one that makes any trudging through mud or braving of the elements worth the effort. I returned to the festival in 2003 almost by accident, gatecrashing on a friend’s guest pass whilst we were on a record store tour at the very infancy of my own musical career, and managed to catch only one day of the weekend on my way to London. But what a day it was, culminating in an incendiary performance from Radiohead that left me wondering if it could ever be bettered. To this day I haven’t been able to answer that, preferring to watch the festival from the comfort of my own armchair (the toilets are less terrifying and the beer much cheaper at my place), but I do hope to return one of these days.

It’s been quite the month for live gigs in my hometown of Glasgow. Last week two legends of the music world – The Who and Neil Young – touched down on the city airport’s sweltering tarmac (on what was a week of glorious sunshine – that’s yer summer for another year, folks) to show the young bucks how it’s done. And this week – as deified in my previous blog – Springsteen played Hampden Park. Since I’m writing this blog on Monday, the day before he plays, I obviously can’t submit a full review as I haven’t yet been to the show. But that won’t stop me submitting a short one: it was AWESOME. He opened with a full on band version/stripped back of a classic/new song! He jumped in to the crowd/pulled some audience members on stage! He played for over 3 hours/6 hours!* (*delete where applicable).

Whatever I happen to think of the gig when I finally manage push my way through the throng of Boss devotees and take a seat (yes, a seat!) at Scotland’s national stadium on Tuesday night, there is an interesting thought to be had about assumptions and managing the expectations of your ticket buying public when you’re an artist of considerable reputation with a back catalogue to boot. What songs to play that will please both audience and artist? Not as easy as it sounds – the musicians invariably want to concentrate on the new work, the fans want the old stuff. My older sister, not the most fervent of Bruce fans, decided to take a jolly with friends at the weekend and so travelled down to London to see his show at Wembley Stadium. Not overly au fait with his blistering rendition of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped”, or the B-side to the 7” Dancing In The Dark single (it was Pink Cadillac, since you ask), what she wanted was simple: the big songs, played as she knew them. And that’s exactly what she got. What’s more, the euphoric reviews in the broadsheets this week have confirmed that I can rest assured I won’t be at the show in Scotland witnessing a 40-minute experimental jazz medley or David Bowie-esque mime odyssey. 

And yet Neil Young is not quite as reliably predictable (and I say that with love for both Neil and Bruce). During our discussions on last week’s show about the boons and perils of growing old disgracefully as a musician, reports started to trickle in about Shakey’s Glasgow gig, which was taking place that night (curse my scheduling conflicts). To say the audience was split right down the middle is a fair assessment of the correspondence we received, given that half thought the show was the work of a maverick non-conformist genius and half thought it was a “challenging” experience. 20-minute guitar solos aren’t exactly unheard of at a Neil Young concert but string more than two or three of them together and you might begin to wonder about value for money. Heart of Gold was there in the mix apparently, but his epic versions of Powderfinger, Ramada Inn and Cinammon Girl defied normal songwriting rules of structure and time and not everyone seemed to go home happy. The disappointment is understandable, such is the passion that some fans have when it comes to hearing their favourite songs, but Shakey’s conviction is also strangely admirable. In fact every time I see Dylan live I swear it’s the last, so disappointing can he be when he’s not right on his game, and yet this week I found myself queuing up for tickets to see him play the Clyde Auditorium just in case it’s one of the sacred “special nights”. It’s this unpredictability of artistry that keeps us coming back for more: you can’t please all the people all of the time, but some musicians try their best to please most of the people most of the time. Then there are those who just like to please themselves. These are the artists of a golden generation of music, defiant to the last, and they’ll do it their way. And whether it happens to please them playing the hits or not; Springsteen, The Who, Dylan and Neil Young all have it in common.

In the days I was a skint student, low on income and struggling to keep a lid on my increasingly feverish record buying habit, I would get my hair cut at a barbers shop round the corner from the house I grew up in. Luckily back then I didn’t sport quite the same quiffage that I do now (which naturally requires a vat of wax and a tanker of hairspray to maintain) and so the theory was that my chosen parlour would be a quick in-and-out job, cheerful but relatively cheap with none of the added frills that a more luxurious salon might offer. Little did I know, however, that my burgeoning (but not exactly significant at the time) musical interest in Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was about to become an obsession, thanks in large part to my gentleman barber. Casting aside the typical “been anywhere nice on your holidays?” chat so redolent of similar establishments within minutes of getting his hands on my tousled barnet, it soon became very apparent that my hairdresser (Alan, for that was his name) was a dedicated employee of the man they like to call “The Boss”. His passion knew no bounds, and as the weeks and months passed – my hair tumbling to the shop floor with gay abandon  – he laid down his love for the man only the most devoted would know as “Scooter”. 

I became intrigued – where had this fanaticism come from? Though I certainly didn’t buy into the oft-peddled nonsense that Springsteen was nothing more than a denim-clad jingoistic working class hero – only writing about cars, girls and the American Dream in the broadest of strokes – I did have some difficulty seeing beyond the sound and feel of some of his mid 80s records (Born In The USA, Tunnel Of Love) for which he was perhaps best known. “Start at the beginning and work your way through” my creative clipper advised me, “then come back and see me when you want to get really serious and into the live stuff”. I duly obliged, taking flight to my local record store to purchase Bruce’s first two albums – Greetings From Ashbury Park, NJ and The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle – and the result was revelatory. Here was an artist I wasn’t familiar with: at the beginning of his career, rough around the edges, over-wordy and uncertain at times perhaps, but also with a voice and a style all of his own. What’s more, those early albums revealed a songwriter with guts and ambition, and in 4^th of July, Ashbury Park (Sandy) and Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) a glimpse of the cinematic sound that was soon to become his trademark.

Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town came next, and I was slipping deeply under the Springsteen Spell. “Thunder Road” became like a hymn to me, a song of almost religious proportions that kept me coming back time after time to kneel at the altar of New Jersey’s favourite son. In 4 minutes and 50 seconds it seems to encapsulate Springsteen’s greatness in its entirety: the wide-eyed romanticism and wildly poetic imagery found in his words, the fragility and the power of his voice, and the epic widescreen majesty of the music. I remember putting the song on my then girlfriend’s iPod in an act of attempted proselytism and being met with vague indifference, only for that to suddenly turn to passionate obsession. After five or six listens she suddenly “got it” and was utterly hooked. My work here was done. 

As a nation we may not be the best at blowing our own trumpet, but maybe we should get tooting: it's a good time for Scottish music.  An hour before our show aired last week the nominees were announced for the Scottish Album Of The Year (SAY) Awards, and what a handsome bunch they are.  Drawn from a longlist of twenty exceptional Scottish albums released between January and December 2012, a shortlist of ten records was duly declared: nine albums as chosen by an esteemed panel of judges, and the tenth the result of a public vote.  And it's a truly great array of records - Admiral Fallow, Django Django, Human Don't Be Angry, Karine Polwart, LAU, Meursault, Paul Buchanan, RM Hubbert, Stanley Odd, and The Twilight Sad all fighting it out for the top prize.   Much has been made of the omission of those more successful albums - in financial terms at least - from acts such as Emeli Sande, but there is much to celebrate in the fact that most of the works nominated were either self-financed or released on independent labels.  That the nominees are all so strong, and indeed pleasingly different from each other, is cause enough to give us great hope for the state of our homegrown industry.

A kind of Scottish Mercury Music Prize seems to be the best description.  Inaugurated in partnership with Creative Scotland, first prize is the not inconsiderable sum of £20,000 (which, if the winning act can resist the temptation to hit Vegas, will easily help to deliver another album or two) with nine runners-up prizes of £1000 and an Art Commission valued at £20,000.  So it's undoubtedly an event to be taken seriously, and one that should be lauded for its attempts to highlight the rich tapestry of music that covers our own fair country.   As great as every record is, however, sadly not all fit our designated genre of show, and so we haven't had the opportunity to let our dear listeners hear selected cuts from all the artists.  But of those that we have featured, five of the nominees made our "Record Of Note" on the show this past year.  And every one of them has more than measured up to the quality of the albums that have come from further afield, which is always heartening.  We may not be able to compete at football as we once did, but it seems we have mad skills when it comes to music.

And so over the next two weeks we'll be investigating the ten nominees in more detail, so that we can all be safe in the knowledge that we know the albums just that little bit better when the winner is announced on the 20th June.  What's more our Record of Note is Camera Obscura's Desire Lines, which may well feature in next year's list for its beautifully realised pop magnificence, and in honour of Neil Young's impending visit to Glasgow's SECC we'll have some vintage Shakey from 1971 as our Live on Arrival.

Always look after your health, that’s a given.  Without it everything has a habit of simply falling apart.  After a few months of writing new songs, organising shows, rehearsing, and pulling together the requisite components for my own band’s imminent album release – as well as fulfilling my beloved radio commitments each Thursday – I was feeling a little burned out.  Alright, I accept I’m very lucky and that my job is easier than most (I’m not exactly at the coal face, let’s be honest) but even we layabout musicians deserve a break every now and again.  And so I saw the chance this past weekend and took my leave to enjoy four days of poor mobile reception and glorious sunshine at a little bolthole in the Scottish countryside with my family.  The weather may well have contributed to my current contented state, but there is no doubt my batteries feel well and truly recharged from the rest.  I have returned from the promised land a much happier and healthier man.

Sometimes in music it’s the same: genres, scenes, and movements that feel urgent and full of life one moment can feel tired and limp the next.  They all need a breather from time to time, whether self-imposed or not.  Elton John was right; it’s the circle of life (the leap of faith, the wheel of fortune, and so on).  But I’m glad to say that at this particular moment in time the music scene in general feels pretty healthy, despite what record sales may tell us.  And that’s perhaps because what really matters – artistry – isn’t as compromised as it once was.  Musicians now have the ways (i.e. accessible and affordable recording systems) and the means (i.e. the Internet) to express themselves in the manner they choose, with little interference or outside influence unless they so desire.  There is of course a quality control argument in all this, but the overall effect is one of a contagious creativity that quickens the pulse in the most helpful of ways.  

This perhaps explains why there’s one scene that is noticeably flourishing at present: folk music.  So often maligned by the mainstream as the preserve of the crusty aged, it’s no secret that it’s been enjoying a whole new lease of life recently, irrepressible in its all-conquering ubiquity.  Yes, bands like banjo-wielding maniacal floor stompers Mumford and Sons have arguably been responsible for opening the floodgates, but scratch beneath the surface and there are a whole heap of artists who are quietly making their mark with quite wondrous work that sits easily beside that of the greats who have gone before them.  On the longlist for the SAY Awards (discussed most enjoyably during last week’s show), for example, sit a number of Scottish artists such as Karine Polwart, Admiral Fallow and LAU who may have slipped under the radar in previous years.  And in English music, the great folk torch is being carried by the likes of Laura Marling.

Is there some sort of undeniable creative thread that links the acting profession to the music profession?  Both worlds seem littered with individuals equally as willing to try their hand at either job, often with hugely variable and unpredictable results.  Zooey Deschanel is a talented actress – doe-eyed indie darling of movies like 500 Days Of Summer and accomplished comedy foil to Will Ferrell in Christmas classic Elf – but she is also one half of rising pop duo She and Him alongside M Ward, already on their 3rd album and growing in popular and critical stature every day (we’ve been playing the infectious new single “Never Wanted Your Love” quite a bit on the show).  Tom Waits is a revered songwriter, but it was perhaps inevitable that the showmanship and theatrical verve so evident in his work would find its way onto screen in some form (he has always favoured the more peculiar of roles, one particularly memorable character his bartender in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Rumble Fish”).

I have been thinking about this because last week I headed to the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow to see a long time favourite of mine, Loudon Wainwright III.  I’ve attended a number of his gigs over the years, and converted a fair few non-believers in the process.  There is always much to recommend, even for the uninitiated, in his highly personal and often hysterically funny songs.  In beauties like White Winos, April Fools Day Morn, Your Mother And I, One Man Guy and so many more, his life is laid bare.  But beyond the songs, there is the physical side to his performance – all nervous ticks, sudden lunges and bizarre facial contortions.  It has to be seen to be believed, and there is little surprise that he has also wandered into movies (beginning in 1974’s M*A*S*H as the ”Singing Surgeon” and continuing as recently as hit films Big Fish and Knocked Up).  But this particular show in Glasgow somewhat strangely welded the two talents together.  So, in between the usual perfectly crafted three-and-a-half-chord gems that seem to flow endlessly from his pen, we were also treated to serious monologues written by his father (Loudon Snowden Wainwright, Jr, a writer for America’s Life magazine with whom his son had a famously difficult relationship), delivered from an antique armchair on the stage.  It was unexpected and, although a little too close to a sort of public therapy at times, it mostly worked.  It may not have been quite what the audience paid to see, but it certainly added an extra dimension that was admirable.

There are two types of hype machine on the market these days.  Hype Machine 1: the uber-slick, expensive and highly attuned device, targeted specifically to meet all of our zeitgeisty requirements, usually driven by – and for – the masses.  When it works it can be an impressive beast.  You would have to have been living under a very large (and non disco ball shaped) rock not to have heard at least a little of the most recent Daft Punk single “Get Lucky”.  The strategic placement of a one-minute advert during the American TV show Saturday Night Live displayed Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers (backed by the Punk’s robots in residence) in all their glitter-suited glory, and did a quite frankly magnificent job of alerting us to the groove heavy delights of the song.

As the song goes, “it takes two, baby”.  But collaboration in music is the most unpredictable of beasts.  Do it well and you can create some truly interesting work – valid and challenging musical projects that bring the best of talent together in new, unusual and often unpredictable ways.  Think ex-Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell and former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, both seemingly from different ends of the musical spectrum, combining to glorious effect on their Mercury nominated album “Ballad Of The Broken Seas”.  Or serious indie troubadour M Ward and actress ingénue Zooey Deschanel as fey pop duo She and Him – an equally unlikely pairing that somehow has the crucial chemistry and musical integrity to lift it beyond any accusations of being a Hollywood vanity project.

 Do it badly however and you can end up with something as, ahem, “challenging” as Lou Reed and Metallica’s “Lulu”. Sadly not the album of covers from the Lennoxtown chanteuse’s back catalogue that we’ve been praying for all these years, but instead a difficult and frequently impenetrable collection of songs that had critics reaching for their pens with the sort of feverish glee only reserved for the most terrifyingly extraordinary of associative works. The album is a concept of sorts, based on two plays written by German playwright Frank Wedekind and featuring Lou’s spoken word set against the thrashing angst of Metallica’s menacing instrumentals.  Upon its release in 2011, Pitchfork called it “exhaustingly tedious”, The Telegraph “grueling”, Blabbermouth “a catastrophic failure on almost every level” (the reviews hurtling steadily downhill from there).  And to think, on paper it seemed like a sure fire hit!

I know from my own experience that deciding to journey with a co-pilot on any musical expedition is both exciting and scary, simply because you just don’t know how it will turn out. I’ve always been a writer of the solitary kind, mostly because I worry irrationally about how to best tackle creative differences before they’ve even arrived. This may be attributable to some early co-writing experiences that I didn’t particularly enjoy – it seemed to me to be a wasted occurrence, producing what I found to be songs of compromise and mixed messaging. Turns out I was wrong, in part, because naturally it all depends on who you collaborate with – maybe a sign of my advancing years but these days I am less stubborn, more willing and able to sit in a room with someone who can bring a whole new perspective to my own writing style. Add this to the fact that outside of the writers’ den I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed some lovely collaborations as a singer with artists such as Kris Kristofferson, Eddi Reader, and Gemma Hayes, and I can see why so many musicians seek solace in melodic partnership.  Misery likes company, after all.

I’ve been musing this of late because of the beautiful new record from Tift Merritt and Simone Dinnerstein – “Night” – that brings the ostensibly disparate worlds of a singer/songwriter and a classical pianist together.  Described as “two explorers seeking a common musical path”, this is the get-together of two undoubtedly kindred spirits from different musical backgrounds and disciplines. It shouldn’t really work, but it does. It’s a beguiling collection of songs – delicate, enchanting and completely arresting – and such is the obvious synergy and connection that the two have on record it’s almost as if they have been heading towards this meeting place all their lives. We played a track from it on the show last week – “Colours” – and it provoked such the reaction that we’re making the whole album our Record of Note this week. Expect to hear a few choice selections from it, alongside Leonard Cohen as Undercover Writer and Live on Arrival with Nina Simone, plus all the usual good and the new.  But remember it takes two to tango – to make sweet music together, we need you there this Thursday from 10.05pm on BBC Radio Scotland.