Playing the Louisiana Blues with James Kelman and co: the Scottish author and musicians The Dirt Roadsters on their creative collaboration

At this point in the book Murdo, who has travelled to America's Deep South with his grieving father, is in Lafayette, Louisiana, watching a band play zydeco, the Creole-infused roots music that blends blues, bluegrass and Cajun to create the evocative, joyous sound that's unique to this part of the United States.

Like many of Kelman’s protagonists, Murdo, who has lost his mother and sister to cancer, finds it hard to express his feelings. But in these few short sentences we get a glimpse into the young man's heart and soul, and start to understand not only why he is so compelled to play, but the overwhelming power of music itself.

It is beautiful, moving stuff. And, like much of this wonderful book, which has been made into a film, Dirt Road To Lafayette, it could only have been written by someone who possesses a genuine knowledge of and passion for this music and its place in the social and cultural history of the American south. To say Kelman does is something of an understatement, and the Glaswegian author could wax lyrical for hours about this music, the people who play it, the land that inspires it.

And that’s exactly what he’s doing right now in a café in Partick, Glasgow, shooting the breeze about music and America with the band put together to play at a clutch of musical readings, including one later this month at the Solas Festival in Perthshire.

Fittingly for a story that explores the relationship between a father and a son, the appropriately named band, Dirt Roadsters, is very much a family affair, and features the author’s two daughters, Laura and Emma Kelman, on vocals, guitar and percussion. Kelman himself doesn't play, but the band also comprises one his oldest friends, Glasgow folk scene stalwart Brendan McLaughlin, as well as the young actor and musician who plays Murdo in the film, Neil Sutcliffe, and Stevie Gavigan, one of Glasgow’s most experienced country guitarists.

The music they play echoes the American traditions explored in Dirt Road, with added notes of Scottish and Irish folk that contributes to the resonance of both film and book.

“The zydeco, Cajun and roots music featured in the film is exciting in so many different ways and I know the band share this excitement with me,” explains Kelman, 71, arguably the most influential Scottish writer of his generation, having produced nine novels and an array of plays, short stories and political essays over a 40-year period. “For the live gigs I’ve written a narrative based on the novel and the screenplay, which I interweave with discussion about the music. I thought it was important to give people some background about the music so they could understand something of where it comes from.

“An important aspect of both the novel and the film is the fact that even people in the US don’t know much about this music, and it’s their country. The music changes from Texas through Arkansas and Tennessee. Then if you go to Louisiana it is zydeco and Cajun, but also swing and jazz. It’s all there. And the inter-relationships between the music is also very important.”

Going on the road with this band is clearly a labour of love for the author, especially as it means spending creative time with his daughters. The sisters, both in their 40s, have been singing together for years and are relishing the gigs too.

“Music was always such a big part of our lives and that came from both parents,” explains Laura, a PE teacher from Glasgow. “There was always music playing in the house, from classical, through Bob Dylan, soul and blues, folk. To be able to do something with Dad has been so exciting for both of us.

“When we were growing up we often went to readings but to suddenly be up there with him on the stage, part of the whole performance, is just fabulous.

“Sometimes the media present Dad in a particular way. What you don’t often see is the man we know, the warm and funny man, the family man who loves spending time with his grandchildren. This band and these gigs have been such a great chance for us all to do something we love together.”

One of the songs in the set is Evangeline, which features on The Band’s seminal 1978 album The Last Waltz. There is laughter around the table as the sisters recall coming home from school to their writer father vacuuming the house in time to the album, singing over the noise.

They have happy memories of growing up in Summerston and the west end of Glasgow with Kelman and their mother, Marie, a social worker and the main breadwinner in the family.

“When we were at school I suppose we knew we were a bit different,” smiles Emma, a paralegal who lives in Glasgow. “Other kids would say, ‘What do you mean your dad writes stories on a typewriter for a living?’ And we’d just say ‘Well, that’s what he does.’ When you’re a child you just accept anything as normal. He typed with two fingers but he was really fast. My friends were always impressed by how fast he was.

“In 1984 Dad got his first cheque for The Bus Conductor Hines. I remember coming home from school and there it was in the kitchen. It was such an exciting time for the family, especially for my mum.”

Laura pitches in, laughing: “The dining room was Dad’s study and I remember kids shouting up at the window, ‘Haw Jimmy, is that you writing your books?’ The neighbours were always invited to book launches and everybody used to come. It was a real community thing.”

Both women say their father was always supportive of their musical endeavours over the years.

“When we were singing Dad always used to tell us not to worry too much about what the audience wants to hear,” remembers Laura. “He’d tell us to sing what feels right and hopefully they would like it too, adding ‘If they don’t, they don’t’.

“And he’d always say ‘never sell out’. I suppose that is the attitude he has taken to his work, too. We’re both really proud of Dad.”

You can hear this pride as the Kelman sisters sing; and in the look of their father you feel it reciprocated.

Dirt Road was originally conceived as a screenplay and was filmed on location in Louisiana by Scots director Kenny Glenaan, whose previous films include Yasmin, Summer and This Is Not A Love Song.

Much to Kelman’s delight, American fiddler and banjo virtuoso Dirk Powell, one of the great roots musicians of his generation (Joan Baez’s current band leader, who has played with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Jack White and Loretta Lynn), was brought on board as musical director, and has written an original score for the film. Neil Sutcliffe, the young musician from Stirling who takes the lead role in the film, plays accordion on a number of the tracks.

With all this in mind, the Dirt Roadsters have put together a set that reflects Powell’s score and the music it references; when you talk to Kelman and his band about influences, the names they throw around include Dewey and Joan Balfa, Doc Watson and Boozoo Chavis, Minnie White and Flaco Jimenez, Johnnie Cash and the Carter family, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Glasgow’s own Matt McGinn.

Dirt Road is arguably Kelman’s most accessible book, and aficionados will recognise the stream-of-consciousness narrative used to explore Murdo’s experience of the world. What also stands out, however, is the strong setting of the novel, Tennessee and Louisiana, and the understanding Kelman displays for the rhythms of life in the Deep South. The author has lived in the US at various points in his life, having moved there with his family as a teenager in the 1960s, where he struggled to find work in Los Angeles. He has also taught creative writing at universities in Texas and California, and has travelled extensively in the southern states, and brings all this experience to bear.

“I like the south immensely,” Kelman explains. “My brother has lived in Long Island for 40 years and we visit fairly often. But I much prefer the south. The north-east is too Anglo-Saxon, too Protestant and white. Maybe it’s wrong to say that, I don’t know.

“Even the music, Sinatra and all that, I never liked any of that. The dinner suits they wore always made me think of Ted Heath and golf clubs. And those cocktails … give us a break. They were trying too hard be a version of European high society.

“I was lucky enough to be in Austin, Texas, for a couple of years and there are so many great places to hear music and experience the culture. Austin is very much my type of place.”

Kelman, described by literary critic Amit Chaudhuri as “the greatest living British novelist”, has always been an overtly political writer, focusing his work on the experiences of working class Scots, whose life experience he recently summed up in an interview as “intimidation, provocation, contempt”. His characters were among the first to speak and think purely in Glaswegian working-class dialect and idiom, a fact which upset some in the London literary establishment but inspired a whole generation of Scottish writers including Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner. His novel How Late It Was, How Late controversially won the Booker Prize in 1994.

Kelman has always been fiercely critical of the “elitist” publishers who, he believes, ignore and patronise Scottish art, language and culture and this is perhaps what drives his sense of kinship with the southern states.

“The south is very misunderstood, even within the US,” he says. “It was very important for me throughout to address some of the false impressions. There is nowhere more political than the Bluegrass mountains, there are no people more political than the Kentucky miners. It was very important within the story to convey some of that struggle.”

For Sutcliffe, meanwhile, one of the most promising young Scottish traditional musicians of the moment, the time spent in Louisiana shooting the film and recording the score was a revelation, especially as it introduced him to a new musical language.

“I don’t think I’d ever listened to American folk or roots music before the film,” says the 17-year-old, who played at this year’s Celtic Connections festival. “I first listened to Cajun music on a CD that Jim [Kelman] sent me and I didn’t really get it – I thought it was maybe a bit too simplistic. But when I went over to Louisiana and started playing, I couldn’t believe how amazing it was and got really into it. It’s been great to learn about the American folk traditions and the links with our traditions in Scotland – for me that’s what it’s all about.”

And how did this first-time actor find his way into the complicated character of Murdo?

“I suppose music was my way in,” Sutcliffe says. “As a young musician reading the book I felt so connected to the way Murdo was listening, watching, responding, the way he reacts to the music and uses it to express himself, even the way he stopped playing it. He understands the struggles of playing music and so do I. Music is never easy and it’s rarely nice or gentle – there’s a lot of harshness and pain in music.”

With the film due for release in the spring, there is talk of holding the world premiere at a midnight show in Lafayette, followed by a zydeco and blues club crawl.

“That really would be quite something,” Kelman beams. “Lafayette is a fun town full of characters.”

If it comes off, you can guarantee there will be a band from Glasgow called the Dirt Roadsters on the bill too.

James Kelman and the Dirt Roadsters play the Solas Festival in Perthshire on Saturday, June 24. The Sunday Herald is the festival's media partner www.solasfestival.co.uk. They also play the Isle of Lismore Taproot Festival, which runs from September 14-17.

Dirt Road is out now on Canongate Books

Dirt Road To Lafayette is due for release in spring 2018