The documentary indulges Mattea’s hopelessly sentimental view of Scotland easily the most toe-

The documentary indulges Mattea’s hopelessly sentimental view of Scotland (easily the most toe- curling moments are the videoesque shots of MacLean lipsyncing to his songs on the Hebridean coastline), prompting a suspicion that this is mere musical tourism “It was never that calculated,” she insists “I think it all comes from a gut place. It felt so real, and it was really about how we both love sitting with guitars and playing music I think there was something really primal. It felt much simpler than all the other things going on around me.”Her occasional collaboration with MacLean can only make her more marketable to the unconverted. But the effects have been personally beneficial, urging her to make further trips out of her own musical landscape, accompanied by a rich, adaptable, highly trained voice with which, post-operation, she is “singing better than I ever have”. She has since dabbled in bluegrass, won a Grammy with a rootsy, gospel-tinged Christmas album called Good News, and led the retreat from country’s traditional homophobic stance by spearheading the Red Hot + Country album and concerts in support of Aids awareness.

And at the 11th attempt, in her 18th year in Tennessee, she’s produced probably her freshest album. In the ceaseless pursuit of creative novelty, she recorded half of Love Travels in New York, and it satisfyingly fuses a cluster of influences picked up on her travels. Dougie MacLean’s is only one of them.She has another influential friend now. Four years ago she played at President Clinton’s inauguration, and may be back for the encore next week. “I was invited to attend the inaugural this time, but I don’t know whether I’m going to be playing. They book that stuff at the last minute.” The President obviously has a bit of pash on Mattea, because he invited her (plus one or two others) to dinner just before Christmas “There were 250 people and he asked to be seated next to me.

There we were chatting away about everything from American history to `Does he get to sleep till noon tomorrow?”‘ This non-musical friendship may have something to do with the fact that they both made it all the way to the top from backwoods states, but Clinton wouldn’t be the first fan to fall under the sway of Mattea’s long lovely face (the Piedmontese gene a clear victor over the Welsh one).Two years ago she played in a Women of Country gig on the south lawn of the White House. Afterwards the President invited her, the band and the crew into his private quarters for a drink “And not only that. He had just spent the day giving speeches with the Secretary of Education that had a lyric from a song of mine called `Seeds’: `We’re all just seeds in God’s hands.’ And he gave us a tour for an hour and a half of a lot of rooms that had real historical significance. Like the Lincoln bedroom.” But not, please note, the Clinton bedroom n`SongRoads’ is screened Sat 25 Jan 10.45pm, BBC2; `Love Travels’ is released Tues 27 Jan on Mercury; `The Dougie MacLean Collection’ is released Mon 20 Jan on Putumayo; Kathy Mattea will tour the UK from 7 Apr. Perhaps because a piano was too large to fit comfortably into the confines of a lager ad, saxophonists were the principal beneficiaries of the Eighties jazz revival. Sheppard, like Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson and Tommy Smith, was one of the few to emerge from the Zeitgeist with both a hot reputation and a record contract.

Entering a national competition (sponsored by Schlitz) whose final was televised, Sheppard came in second but impressed sufficiently to get a deal with Island and a kick-start to a career that has taken him into most of the available niches ever since: guest star with big American name (Carla Bley); classical crossover (with John Harle); free improvisation (with fellow Bristolian Keith Tippett); support to pop act (John Martyn); and British Council tours to far-flung outposts (Mongolia). If, as a consequence, Sheppard has sometimes seemed as if he was keeping unlikely company, he has nevertheless continued heroically to demonstrate his prodigious talent even when the context looked like defeating him. Happily, his new quartet is perhaps his most comfortable context yet. Accompanied by his regular partner Steve Lodder on piano, with Dudley Phillips on double-bass, and the wonder drummer Mark Mondesir, Sheppard has at last made a group in his own image: an eclectic, compulsively tuneful and mainly acoustic band with whom his most abiding virtues are able to flourish. As a soloist, Sheppard excels in short, intense, bursts, where his tight phrasing and unfailingly musical sound create a mixture of the best elements of the American and European traditions. He can, if necessary, blow up a storm, but the tone of his horn is usually pitched at a mellifluous angle where the effects are thoughtful and hard-won rather than pulverisingly obvious.