Rod Clements saw considerable chart success with folk-rockers Lindisfarne, penning their hit Meet Me On The Corner. Now a solo artist, he is currently recording a new album. Rod is proud to have worked with the late, great Bert Jansch, and he continues to collaborate with various other musical kindred spirits including Michael Chapman, Rachel Harrington and Rab Noakes. We trust you’ll enjoy the latest of Rod’s regular musings in which you’ll find he’s NICELY OUT OF TUNE I’ve just sat down at the computer to write this column when I remember that I’d said I’d show somebody how to play Dire Straits’ Romeo And Juliet, so I decide to refresh my memory of it with a quick visit to YouTube. There are quite a few versions and it takes a while to find the best one. But wait a minute; what’s this in the sidebar? Mark Knopfler and Scotty Moore doing Blue Moon Of Kentucky together? I didn’t know Mark had done that (is there anybody he hasn’t played with?) – I’d better check it out. Pretty good – big fat Gibsons all round and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings in attendance. Alongside it there’s a link to the Bill Monroe original and it would seem disrespectful to the Father of Bluegrass not to click on it, so I do, and wonder again at how these old masters can remain stony-faced while playing such energetic music. Bill glares at the young banjo player when he looks like he’s starting to enjoy himself too much. Great stuff, and next up there’s Blue Grass Breakdown – I’ll just watch that and then get down to business. Hang on though, what’s this in the sidebar suggestions? Some guys called The Osborne Brothers, in glorious 1967 Technicolor, wearing sparkly gold shirts. I wonder if that’s worth checking out? It is. Look, one of them’s playing a white bass guitar. I bet that raised a few bluegrass purists’ eyebrows, not least Bill Monroe’s, which were big bushy ones designed to be raised in disapproval. But what a song – Rocky Top. Why have I never heard this before? I wonder who wrote it? A quick visit to Google, and then I’ll get to work. Well, stone me if it wasn’t Felice & Boudleaux Bryant. I never knew they wrote bluegrass standards as well as all those hits for The Everly Brothers and people, but it figures, now I think about it. In fact, when I look them up on Wikipedia, it turns out they wrote a lot more songs for a lot more people than I knew about. Like somebody called Carl Smith, who was married to June Carter before she divorced him and married Johnny Cash. I’ll just have a quick peek to see what he’s like. That’s a funny looking guitar he’s got, I’ve never seen one like that before. I wonder what it is? Google to the rescue again: Carl’s guitar was made by somebody called Frank Gay. Bit of a character by all accounts, who built weird guitars whose quality varied depending on the amount of Canadian rye whiskey consumed. (It doesn’t say whether the whiskey made the guitars better or worse.) He also kept a pet bat. (Q: How do you keep a pet bat? A: At a distance.) And somebody’s posted a picture of a bat next to it. Not a very nice bat. Okay, time to get down to work. Just one more listen to Rocky Top first. But now there’s a link to Emmylou Harris, guesting with The Oak Ridge Boys. Where do I know their name from? According to Wikipedia, they started out way back in the 1940s as Wally Fowler And His Georgia Clodhoppers, who got themselves a regular gig and a new name playing at… that’s it! The Oak Ridge Nuclear Research Facility, Tennessee! Good grief, what have I stumbled on here? A clandestine link between the Grand Ole Opry and the military-industrial complex? This could go all the way to the top. The column will have to wait… it looks like I’m in for a long night.