FRIDAY 29TH JUNE
CONCERT
Kilmelford - Cuilfail Hotel - Archie McAllister - 7.30pm
SATURDAY 30TH JUNE
CLASS
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Gaelic Song Class with Wilma Kennedy - 10am
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Whistle with Helen Forbes - 12:30pm
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Harp with Simon Chadwick - 2pm
MONDAY 2ND JULY
Accordion and Fiddle Club
Coldingham - Crosslaw Caravan Park - John Renton - 7.30pm
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This week, my Sunday Morning guest is Marion Partington, whose sister, Lucy, was one of Fred and Rosemary West's victims. In the programme, she shares her journey of healing through prayer and meditation, and talks about what forgiving means to her.
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One summer evening many years ago I was in flat in Edinburgh at festival time. I encountered a young man from Canada and started to talk about the little I knew of Canadian music. (This was around the mid to late seventies remember)......Who, did he think, really spoke with a Canadian voice that I should be listening to? Bruce Cockburn, he told me......Before I could say 'who?' he was quietly reciting to me....
Rain rings trash can bells /And what do you know / My alley becomes a cathedral..
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Here is the latest recipe from The Kitchen Café. To be downloaded, kept, cooked and enjoyed.
Neil Forbes' summer pudding
The Kitchen Café is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Scotland, every Wednesday 1315-1400
I think we have as diverse a mix of material this week as we've ever had...from tax avoidance and the morality thereof...to the stresses and indignity of needless poverty (both right here in dear old Blighty) to the failure of climate change plans...the descent into disorder in Libya and mummy porn.
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Here are the latest ceilidhs, traditional music events and classes in Scotland compiled for you by Dawn Baxter and the Take the Floor team:
SATURDAY 23RD JUNE
CLASS
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Gaelic Song Class with Wilma Kennedy - 10am
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Whistle with Helen Forbes - 12:30pm
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Harp with Simon Chadwick - 2pm
Concert
Plockton - High School - Plockton Music School on tour - 7.30pm
SUNDAY 24th JUNE
Accordion and Fiddle Club
Forfar - Plough Inn - Ewan Galloway Scottish Dance Band - 7.30pm
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It"s time to tell the truth. I've never been to The Grand Old Opry.. or Glasgow. I pass every Friday night on my way home and metaphorically tip my hat. I often think it odd that the people inside might not know much about us down at the AC Coral and likewise we would be strangers to their local ways. (I've heard there are mock gun fights.) For those who don't know about this fine piece of Southside Glasgow mythology it is a country (and western) club/venue in Kinning Park to which all manner of stetsonned, nudie-suited Scottish cowboys and girls pay regular homage of a weekend.
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Luckily for us Café staffers, Scotland is very well stocked when it comes to talented folk to interview. Sometimes I think we've got more than our fair share of creative, clever people. Proof positive of that came on Tuesday on The Culture Café when a trio of terrific interviewees came in to our little studio in Pacific Quay. Former Bishop, Richard Holloway was home alone in Edinburgh sadly but I was sitting opposite ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ colleague Jamie MacDougall, classical music presenter and singer and a much praised writer/director Cora Bisset. Finally, there was Emma Clifford, a young woman who'd played a part in inspiring Cora to stage a musical about an unusual human rights campaign seven years ago that she was involved in.
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Here is the latest recipe from The Kitchen Café. To be downloaded, kept, cooked and enjoyed.
Ghillie Basan's tsatsiki
Sue Lawrence's Isle of Mull cheddar and ham bread and butter pudding
Andy Cumming's vanilla ice cream
The Kitchen Café is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Scotland, every Wednesday 1315-1400.
I'm joined this week, on Sunday Morning, by a man who wears many hats. Greg Garret is one of America's leading voices on religion and culture but he is also a writer, professor, preacher and retreat leader. We'll have no shortage of conversation but the main part of our discussion is centered on his Baptist upbringing, his struggle with depression and how becoming part of a new, life-affirming faith community, helped him to thrive.
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Here are the latest ceilidhs, traditional music events and classes in Scotland compiled for you by Dawn Baxter and the Take the Floor team.
SATURDAY 16th JUNE
CLASS
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Gaelic Song Class with Wilma Kennedy - 10am
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Whistle with Helen Forbes - 12:30pm
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Harp with Simon Chadwick - 2pm
CONCERT
Dundee, Steps Theatre, Dundee Central Library - Simon Chadwick, Barbara Dymock, Wilma Kennedy and Sheena Wellington - 2pm
Glasgow - Clyde Auditorium - The Chieftains
Wick - Market Square - Wick RBLS Pipe Band - 7.30pm
SUNDAY 17th JUNE
Accordion and Fiddle Club
Annan St Andrew - St Andrew's Social Club, Standalane - Gold Brothers
CONCERT
Edinburgh - Usher Hall - The Chieftains
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I didn't really understand a lot of the hoopla around Tom Jones. He was a big star in the sixties and he had some remarkable success. But when I heard of his collaborations with dance producers and various pop whizz kids it made me feel, well, slightly depressed. There's a lot on the world of popular music that does depress me and I'm pleased to say I don't ever have to deal with it in this blog or on the AC as there's too much good stuff to celebrate. But in this particular blog I need to explain a Damascene conversion more remarkable than even the great stalwarts of the Labour Party's conversion to membership of the upper chamber. Folks...I'm loving where Tom Jones has found himself and for that reason I'm pleased to say he is a returning star to the Another Country gallery of great guests.
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Self Publishing used to have a bad rep. Pejoratively referred to as Vanity Publishing, it was seen as the last resort of desperate wannabe writers who couldn't attract the attention of a big publishing house to edit, market and distribute their novels. How things change -and how quickly! In the past ten years or so the digital era has allowed aspiring writers to take things into their own hands and get their novels out to the reading public without help from a third party.
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Here is the latest recipe from The Kitchen Café. To be downloaded, kept, cooked and enjoyed.
Neil Forbes Pan-fried Mackerel with Potato Salad
The Kitchen Café is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Scotland, every Wednesday 1315-1400.
Today I got the chance to run with the Olympic flame in my home town of Aberdeen.
My moment to shine was over three hours ago and I have thought of nothing else since. I mean that literally - every conversation, every email, every waking moment. My paper is unread and my breakfast hardly touched.
How can someone running through the streets with a big shiny stick have that effect not just on me but on the tens of thousands who come out to see it in every town it visits. That must be down to the magic of the Olympics. It's proper magic - the kind that can turn something ordinary into an experience of a lifetime.
Bryan Burnett running with the Olympic Torch in Aberdeen, 12 June 2012.
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So all things Jubilee celebrations this past week across the country, of which, my personal highlight was seeing singer Grace Jones performing at The Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert - her 1985 hit 'Slave to The Rhythm' whilst spinning a hula hoop... not at all bad for a pensioner! Definitely worth a spin across the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer for sure if you didn't catch the first spin of the hoop...
Away from the big televised gig at the Queen Victoria Memorial, this week saw me back on home roads again leading towards Glasgow's Oran Mor on Thursday evening (6th of June) to take in the performing and playing talents of Grammy Nominated Bluegrass singer songwriter Sarah Jarosz.
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Here are the latest ceilidhs, traditional music events and classes in Scotland compiled for you by Dawn Baxter and the Take the Floor team.
FRIDAY 8TH JUNE
CONCERT
Stonehaven - Lower Community Centre, Bath Stree - Anthony John Clark
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One aspect of broadcasting the public usually miss is the role of the producer. So dazzled is the outside world by the glinting teeth and flashing intellect of the presenter - and in my case the honeyed voice - that they fail to notice what lies beyond.
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Trying to dig a little deeper this week I looked into the background of Nashville's oldest and most famous I came across an interesting pointer to the story of why Music City became the centre for country music. It seems the key is in the sheer power of WSM's reach back in the day. The radio mast - now inducted into the - was so tall and it's power so strong that country music and in particular reached people all over the south and midwest of America.
It's WSM's AM frequency where you'll find any resemblance to the country music we play here on the AC. For the other stuff you'd need to check out alternative stations like , where they are advertising the up and coming dates and playing people like Patty Griffin, Dr John and The Decembrists and for our other acts we sometimes play you'd perhaps need to find a college radio station. Of course you get all this in the one place and in two hours of commercial free radio on your own ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. (we all own it)
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Former Glasgow solicitor turned Burns aficionado and after dinner speaker, joins me on Sunday Morning this week, to talk about his life before, during and after the theatricality of the Scottish law courts.
Ahead of the visit to Scotland next week, I'll be discussing the work of film-maker Khashyar Darvich, who produced and directed the unique documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance at the spiritual leaders home, high up in the Himalayas
Dave Bingham extols the virues and healing properties of spending time at one with Nature, through his project Wild Earth, and Anna Magnusson reports on a special scheme called the - where youngsters are given the opportunity and a safe place to talk about their feelings.
And I'll be hearing the remarkable story of Congolese ex-asylum-seeker who turned his fortunes around and found love, faith and financial success in Glasgow through his passion for hip-hop.
And there's a taste of the Wild West in this week's selection from the Listening Project plus the usual excellent selection of music, so listen in between 7am-9pm this Sunday Morning With Cathy Macdonald.
I've been helping to string up the Union Jack bunting in the Newsweek office this week and I've got Elgar on the ayepod. Some people are very dismissive of the Monarchy but once you've been to Buckingham Palace, as I have, you feel a closeness to the Royal Family. I'm thinking of replicating the Royal Barge procession on the Thames with some paper boats in the duck pond in Kelvingrove Park. I hear some of the Glasgow locals are planning to barbecue swan but I think that may be illegal. (It is illegal. Can we move on - the Producer)
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SATURDAY 2ND JUNE
CLASS
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Gaelic Song Class with Wilma Kennedy - 10am
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Whistle with Helen Forbes - 12:30pm
Dundee, Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Harp with Simon Chadwick - 2pm
Fiddle workshops
Argyll - Memorial Hall, Strchur, Cowal, Argyll - details from www.fiddleworkshop.co.uk
SUNDAY 3RD JUNE
Accordion and Fiddle Club
Dunblane - Victoria Hall - Dance - 7.15pm
CONCERT
Innerleithen - Traquair House Hotel - Music verse and Song - 8pm
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Great to be back and spending the summer with you on Sunday Morning, once again. This week my special guest is Father Roddy Johnston, who will be telling us all about his unconventional route to the priesthood.
Now, here's a question for you: where would you find a cursing stone, and would you really use it for that purpose? Dr Donald William Stewart joins me to explain more about this most intriguing of religious artefacts recently discovered on the Scottish island of Canna
Reporter Bob Dickson finds out how an Edinburgh based arts project in Edinburgh is encouraging young people with autism to explore and express their artistic side.
A new fictional detective is about to hit the bookstores, but this one isn't of the hardboiled, hard-drinking variety - one who prefers warm beer over a dry sherry - but a village vicar turned super-sleuth! The author, , also happens to be the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
On this Jubilee weekend is held across the country, encouraging neighbours and communities to come together to share company and food. I'll be having a blether with both Alastair McIntosh of , and Rev Doug Gay about why sharing a meal with people you might not even know provides social nutrition and a spirit of neighbourliness.
All this and the usual excellent selection of music, listen in between 7am-9pm this Sunday Morning With Cathy Macdonald.
It's been a busy month of May gigs wise, all of which kicked off with Alabama Shakes, Duncan McCrone, Michael Kiwanuka and Newton Faulkner...
So what better way to round of the month than with another gig eh?
Once again my musical path led to Glasgow's Kings Tut's (30th of May) to take in the Colin Macintyre led Mull Historical Society and their alternative indie pop sounds.
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| 16:49 UK time, Friday, 29 June 2012
