Roddy Hart - Mike Scott and Bob Dylan

Read on for Roddy's inaugural blog:

Every blog has its day, and mine - for better or worse - has finally arrived. But rather than mourning a loss, we are celebrating an arrival, for over the coming months I'll be checking in as much as possible with a word or two on the goings on at The Roddy Hart Show (Thursday nights from 10.05pm, as if you didn't know). So, expect musings, meanderings, mutterings, and other things that may or may not begin with the letter "M".

And yet, rather conveniently, "M" is the perfect place to start. For in addition to the usual array of majestic music from all corners of the globe (predominantly focused on classic troubadour-ing and new directions in folk-rock, but increasingly gaining in errant eclecticism - Seu Jorge's Portuguese cover of Bowie's "Life On Mars" for our Undercover feature a few weeks ago was a particular highlight), it also brings us the name of our very first guest on the show this week: Mike Scott.

For those who don't know, Mike is artist in residence with The Waterboys - the band he started in 1983 that would go on to enjoy huge success with its trademark fusion of Celtic Folk and Rock n'Roll music. Songs like "Whole Of The Moon", "Fisherman's Blues", "And A Bang On The Ear", "A Rock In The Weary Land" and more recently "Sweet Dancer" all lay claim to his influential brand of literate and romantic songcraft and mark him out as one of our great songwriters. He recently published his brilliant autobiography Adventures Of A Waterboy (or as I've come to refer to it, in my best Alan Partridge-esque voice, his "Waterboyography"), and prior to the launch at Glasgow's Oran Mor last month, we nabbed him for an exclusive chat.

From gatecrashing Patti Smith's touring entourage as a teenager, to writing "Whole Of The Moon" in a moment of dizzying inspiration, through to his recent celebrated collaboration with the work of WB Yeats, his life in music is fascinating and illuminating and we have two 30-minute specials with him starting on this Thursday's show. Not to be missed.

And yet Mr Scott isn't the only man of note to feature, for a certain Bob Dylan is back with his 35th studio album this week "Tempest". Much discussion from the Zimmerman Zealots™ as to whether this is Bob's swan song, given that it shares its name with Shakespeare's final work, but don't you believe it: there is plenty of life in the old dog yet. Expect some heavy rotation and, I'm sure, a healthy dose of critical assessment from our listeners. As long as it isn't Self Portrait Part II then we can all breath easy (SPOILER ALERT: it's very good).

So that's Mike Scott, Bob Dylan and of course the usual host of great music from across the years and genres. And that's all happening this Thursday at 10.05pm on BBC Radio Scotland. But you knew that already, didn't you?